You didn’t think consoles like the Xbox and PlayStation would escape the artificial intelligence assimilation, did you? Actually, Sony’s console might remain pure for a bit longer than Microsoft’s gaming hardware. The American company has gone all-in on AI and that involves cramming the technology into everything.
The Xbox’s first encounter with the ‘future’ is a new AI-powered chatbot that will handle the platform’s tech support queries. Yup. That’s it. Except it’ll have a personality. So… totally unlike all those humans who used to handle the function for Microsoft.
Xbox of tricks
The Support Virtual Agent, as Microsoft is calling its new AI-created abomination assistant, is intended to “help Xbox players more efficiently solve their support-related gaming issues” by using “information from support.xbox.com to answer questions relevant to Xbox console and game support issues”. That’s not a new function, as it happens.
See, if the Support Virtual Agent can’t sort you out — ‘you’ being an English-speaking American, at least at first — then Microsoft will let you open communication with an actual, living human. That’s how the company’s Xbox support setup works right now, except the chatbot isn’t as slick as this is supposed to be.
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There’s something of a personality in there, plus users can choose if they want their information from an all-knowing logo orb or a cutesy little anime robot-like thing.
The feature is currently in preview on Microsoft’s platform in the States. Early users will be used to gather data and improve performance on the new AI chatbot, but other AI features are also planned. Natural language search is also rolling out, which may or may not turn up more effective search results. It probably doesn’t know why you’re asking your games console for information that your smartphone will more effectively spit out, though.
