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Nvidia has spent the last two years showing off its digital \u201cACE\u201d characters that can have in-game conversations with you using generative AI. But at CES 2025, the company is taking the ACE characters a step further by showing how they can be \u201cautonomous game characters\u201d \u2014 including, sometime this year, a teammate to help you get a chicken dinner in PUBG<\/em>. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Nvidia says that ACE characters can use AI to \u201cperceive, plan, and act like human players,\u201d per a blog post<\/a>. \u201cPowered by generative AI, ACE will enable living, dynamic game worlds with companions that comprehend and support player goals, and enemies that adapt dynamically to player tactics.\u201d The characters are powered by \u201csmall language models (SLMs)\u201d that are \u201ccapable of planning at human-like frequencies required for realistic decision making\u201d as well as \u201cmulti-modal SLMs for vision and audio that allow AI characters to hear audio cues and perceive their environment.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n As for how that will work in PUBG<\/em>, you\u2019ll be able to team up with the \u201cPUBG<\/em> Ally,\u201d which Nvidia and PUBG<\/em> publisher Krafton are calling the \u201cworld\u2019s first Co-Playable Character (CPC).\u201d The Ally will be able to \u201ccommunicate using game-specific lingo, provide real-time strategic recommendations, find and share loot, drive vehicles, and fight other human players using the game\u2019s extensive arsenal of weapons,\u201d Nvidia says. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Basically, it sounds like an AI teammate you can talk with natural language who\u2019s supposed to be as capable as a human. And a video<\/a> shows the Ally indeed helping a player find specific loot, bringing over a vehicle, and attempting to flank opposing players. But the video is heavily edited and isn\u2019t live, so I\u2019m skeptical that the Ally will work as well as is being shown here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n AI characters built with ACE are coming to other games, too. Naraka: Bladepoint Mobile PC Version<\/em> will get a \u201ca local inference AI Teammate feature\u201d in March 2025, while Naraka: Bladepoint<\/em> on PC will get the feature \u201clater in 2025,\u201d according to Nvidia\u2019s blog post. \u201cAI Teammates powered by NVIDIA ACE can join your party, battling alongside you, finding you specific items that you need, swapping gear, offering suggestions on skills to unlock, and making plays that\u2019ll help you achieve victory.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Krafton\u2019s upcoming life simulation game called inZOI <\/em>will also get CPCs called \u201cSmart Zoi.\u201d<\/a> And Nvidia says that ACE characters can be bosses, too, and they\u2019ll be used for boss encounters in Wemade Next\u2019s MIR5<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n