New messaging from EA offers some insight into the company's communicated approach to AI, at a time when it's reportedly pushing 15,000 employees to use the technology in their workflow.
An updated EA employee FAQ posted online by the US Securities and Exchange Commission includes a new section asking, "Will our approach to AI change under new ownership?" This follows reports that EA's buyers – Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners, and private equity firm Silver Lake – allegedly hope to cut operating costs using AI, as well as separate, scattered reports that AI is already being used as filler for downsized teams around the games industry.
"We will maintain a thoughtful, steady approach to AI," EA claims in the FAQ. "AI is a tool to empower our people to put creativity first by reimagining workflows and amplifying the creative power of our teams."
Additionally, EA says, "This transaction will allow us to invest heavily in our business to accelerate innovation and unlock new growth opportunities." This response, attached to a question about AI under EA's new owners, may not land as comforting reassurance for everyone.
EA sounded a bit more emphatic at a September 2024 investor's presentation which dealt heavily in AI. (You can watch it here.) At the time, CEO Andrew Wilson commented on "today's innovations in generative AI," saying, "This remarkable technology is not merely a buzzword for us – it's the very core of our business."
Business Insider reports that a push for AI training and integration across disciplines at EA has led to division within the company, with some employees pushing back especially fiercely against the idea of using generative AI as a "thought partner." I can see why; it is often not a partner but a replacement for thought.
AI has reportedly found some legitimate use cases and success stories within the company, and there are genuinely productive applications of AI. But, for instance, anonymous employees also said EA's in-house chatbot ReefGPT routinely spits out "flawed code and other so-called hallucinations" that end up creating work for employees.
Even in September 2024, Wilson said, "Right now we have over 100 active novel AI projects across three strategic categories: efficiency, expansion, and transformation."
On efficiency, Wilson added, "This does not just mean cost savings today. Efficiency is doing what we're doing today faster, cheaper, and at a higher quality. That means driving more iteration, more testing, and higher quality content for our community. It means removing obstacles for our game developers. It means culturalizing content across geographies so they can focus on finding more fun for more players around the world."
Here again, a lot of AI sounds good, and can be gussied up to entreat investors or executives chomping at the bit to improve margins, but modern reports illustrate how implementation can ruffle feathers among the people expected to use it, to say nothing of the people expected to accept, for instance, AI-generated content.
