The Hidden partner: Artificial Intelligence and Video Games

The Hidden partner : Artificial Intelligence and Video Games

Authors:
Benghozi Pierre-Jean
Simon Jean-Paul

Abstract:
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a central driver of economic transformation, reshaping organisational structures, value chains, and production models across industries. Among cultural industries, the video game sector occupies a distinctive position due to its intrinsic technological and industrial foundations. Unlike other creative industries that progressively integrated digital technologies, the video game industry emerged directly from the convergence of computing, electronics, software engineering, and entertainment. The paper argues that video games constitute a privileged experimental field for the development, testing, and dissemination of AI technologies.

The article proposes a conceptual framework centred on technological and organisational complementarities between AI and video games. First, it highlights a bidirectional technological relationship in which games not only benefit from AI advances but also contribute directly to the development of AI infrastructures, notably through the demand for GPUs, simulation environments, and large-scale behavioural datasets. Second, the article analyses the organisational transformations induced by AI, including changing firm boundaries, the emergence of hybrid competencies, and the increasing role of players as co-creators within platform ecosystems. Third, the paper shows how these dynamics contribute to a broader systemic convergence between entertainment, simulation, cloud computing, and AI industries.