Square Enix Plans to Make “Aggressive” Use of AI in 2024

A New Year’s letter by Square Enix CEO Takashi Kiryu indicates that the company will be focusing on making use of AI technology in its development of games. The letter—a yearly tradition for the company—talks about the company’s plans for the future. Among other things, the use of AI seems to be a key part of the company’s plans moving forward.

“Artificial intelligence (AI) and its potential implications had for some time largely been subjects of academic debate,” said Kiryu in the letter. “However, the introduction of ChatGPT, which allows anyone to easily produce writing or translations or to engage in text-based dialogue, sparked the rapid spread of generative AIs.”

Kiryu notes that generative AI is applicable in a number of different fields, and isn’t necessarily limited to only generating text. The company plans on making use of AI for a number of things. “I believe that generative AI has the potential not only to reshape what we create, but also to fundamentally change the processes by which we create, including programming,” he says in the letter.

Along with the company’s plans of strengthening its development and publishing arms by putting new processes in place and strike a balance between a product-oriented and a market-oriented approach to releasing products, Square Enix also plans to be “aggressive” in its use of AI technology.

“We also intend to be aggressive in applying AI and other cutting-edge technologies to both our content development and our publishing functions,” reads the letter. “In the short term, our goal will be to enhance our development productivity and achieve greater sophistication in our marketing efforts. In the longer term, we hope to leverage those technologies to create new forms of content for consumers, as we believe that technological innovation represents business opportunities.”

Interestingly, the company had made similar statements in its New Year’s letter back in 2022, when then-present CEO Yosuke Matsuda spoke about the company making use of Web 3.0, NFTs and blockchain technology in its games. Since then, the company has been working on an NFT project titled Symbiogenesis. Matsuda stepped down from his role as CEO in June 2023, with Kiryu taking the reins of the company.