Financial Times has reported that Elon Musk’s AI system, xAI, is working to design physical environments, which the company is planning to use to create interactive digital environments for video games.
According to the Financial Times, two people who know the company’s plans explained that the world models xAI is attempting to “create” are meant for video games. This puts xAI in competition with both Meta and Google, whose artificial intelligence models are working to do the exact same thing.
World models are a bit different than the current AI models of today. For example, video AI platforms (like Sora from OpenAI) generate videos by consistently predicting what will come next based on patterns that it’s gained from training data. World models have a knowledge base that includes physics and how objects can interact, according to the Financial Times’ explanations.
These world models aren’t inherently geared towards gaming. As Elon Musk himself pointed out on X yesterday, xAI wants to do everything in the manufacturing process without creating the physical item itself. These world models will theoretically contribute to that, according to the Financial Times, as they can be used to push AI even further into the robotics realm instead of software.
While world models have a lot of potential, the two people who spoke to the Financial Times explained that the company has plans to use them specifically in gaming. One of the two did mention that the world models could be applied to robotic AI systems, though.
Musk has also commented on this on X, saying that xAI could release a “great” AI-generated video game before 2026 comes to a close (it’s worth noting that this X post is quoting a Grok-generated FPS scene that’s questionable-looking at best).
In general, AI is a hot topic today, but developers have been using generative AI at different levels for some time now. Krafton revealed how it uses generative AI in co-playable characters in both PUBG and inZOI, and EA’s CEO spoke about how it’s the core of the company.