AI and Games Conference

Alessandro Sestini is a research engineer at SEED - Electronic Arts. SEED is a R&D lab within Electronic Arts - a pioneering group combining creativity with applied research. Alessandro obtained his PhD with honorable mention in Smart Computing and Computer Engineering, at Università degli Studi di Firenze, Florence under the supervision of prof Andrew Bagdanov (ex Westwood Studios); Alessandro is currently working on how to apply Deep Reinforcement Learning, Inverse Reinforcement Learning, Imitation Learning and Large Language Models for video game production, helping video game industry in the use of machine learning. His goal is to train/develop intelligent agents for game AI and playtesting.

Alessandro contributed to the game AI landscape publishing several academic papers and giving several talks about the intersection between machine learning and video game development, helping researchers and practitioners in adopting such technology. He is the solo developer of DeepCrawl, a turn-based roguelike game for mobile devices where the NPCs are controlled by machine learning. Alessandro obtained his master degree with honorable mention in computer engineering working on using Machine Learning for the development of AI in roguelike games.

Anna is a games lawyer at Sheridans, advising national and international games developers, publishers, digital media agencies and other games companies on a broad range of matters in connection with the development, publishing and IP protection of games (both video games and tabletop). She has also featured in industry publications such as Gamesindustry.biz and EDGE and has a strong reputation for providing thought leadership and advice in connection with AI and IP law. She is also a Trustee of the BGI, the charity behind the National Videogame Museum, on the Advisory Board of Game Anglia.

Andrei started in the games industry in 2004 as 3D artist, then worked as a designer and producer through the rise of mobile (J2ME, then smartphone) and game analytics and monetization leader through the rise of free-to-play at Ludia and WB Games. His industry career is book-ended by AI, initially as academic focus at McGill University, and for the last 2 years developing solutions and consulting customers for analytics and AI for games at AWS.

Arya is a Solutions Architect at Amazon Web Services (AWS) based in Toronto, Canada. She serves as a technical advisor to Enterprise customers, guiding them in leveraging cloud solutions to address business challenges. With a passion for Generative AI, Arya specializes in prompt engineering and AI agents. She has helped multiple customers in exploring and implementing AI/ML technologies to drive innovation and optimize processes. Arya enjoys contributing her insights through published blogs and speaking engagements at tech events.

Brendan Mulcahy is a Lead Research Engineer at Epic Games and the co-creator of Learning Agents, which is a UE plugin for reinforcement and imitation learning. His dream is that games will be able to have AI characters that have human-like gameplay and decision making.

Dr Christoph Salge is a Reader in Artificial Intelligence in Games at the University of Hertfordshire. His research interests span topics such as games, artificial intelligence, intrinsic motivation, procedural content generation, robotics and artificial life - focused on the big question of how we will design a future human-AI society. He is an avid gamer of computer-, board- and roleplaying games, and the main organizer of the AI Settlement Generation Challenge in Minecraft.

Chris J Wallace is a software engineer who likes making nice things for people. He is court jester and frequent mischief maker at Hidden Door, where he only incidentally writes code. Prior to this, he has a decade of experience doing machine learning things in technology companies, and a PhD in quantifying the extent to which some theoretical particles don’t exist.

David joined Guerrilla in 2020 as an AI programmer and got to work on Horizon Forbidden West and the DLC Burning Shores. Prior to that, he graduated from an AI masters degree from the University of Amsterdam. David has prior work experience in mobile game development as an programmer with the bulk of that time at the studio Wooga in Berlin. Plus in Berlin he had some experience teaching game development students at the School4Games.

Dr. Diego Perez-Liebana (he/him/his) is the co-founder and director of Tabletop R&D, and currently a Senior Lecturer in Computer Games and Artificial Intelligence at Queen Mary University of London (UK). He holds a Ph.D in Computer Science from the University of Essex (2015). His research is centered in the application of Artificial Intelligence to games, Tree Search and Evolutionary Computation, and he’s especially interested in the application of Statistical Forward Planning methods to modern games, in particular to modern Tabletop Board Games. He is author of more than 100 papers in the field of Game AI and has experience in the games industry as a game programmer and AI tool developer.

After completing a masters in computing science at in the Bionic Limbs for Improved Natural Control (BLINC) Lab at University of Alberta, Jaden went on to lead a research team at Eidos-Montreal applying Reinforcement Learning (RL) to functional game testing, developing several internal and open source tools. Jaden then went on to work as an AI Engineer at Sony AI, contributing to the training and game integration of Gran Turismo Sophy on PS5.

Joar is the lead dev behind Rain World. with interests in animation, AI and procedural systems.

Laurent has been making games for 17 years, that means he's nearly an adult developer now. His contributions include work with Ubisoft (Rayman Origins) and Arkane (Dishonored 2, Deathloop). Today he's working on top secrets projects with Build A Rocket Boy. He has long forgotten the definition of "spare time" since he's been the father of 2 marvelous kids.

Luca Ballore is a Software Engineer at DICE – Electronic Arts, bringing nearly 15 years of tech industry experience. He has an extensive background in the advertisement sector, where he focused on the application of machine learning and contributed to the development of a platform for contextual advertising. Since joining Electronic Arts, Luca has been involved in the Quality Verification (QV) space, with an emphasis on critical events, autoplayers, test automation, and workflow automation. He also serves as the lead for AI-driven projects in the QV space for the Battlefield franchise.

With a background in innovation, entrepreneurship, and product management, Martina is a leader in the practical application of AI. Equipped with a master’s in digital business, she possesses expertise in AI, cybersecurity, and legislation. Currently working as a senior technical product manager for AI at Unity, Martina propels cutting-edge advancements that also align with her values of fostering creativity, diversity, equity, and inclusion. In addition to her work at Unity, Martina is passionate about social impact and uses her skills and network to help address societal issues.

Mónica Villanueva Aylagas is a Research Engineer at SEED, an applied research and innovation group within Electronic Arts. Working in the intersection of cutting-edge technology and art, Monica's focus and interest is in generative models and how they can help creative people unlock their potential.

With 6 years of experience in the gaming industry, Mónica has been instrumental in the development and adoption of ML driven technologies such as Voice2Face, Exflowsions and Avalon.

Mónica holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science Engineering from the Autonomous University of Madrid and a Master’s degree in Machine Learning from KTH in Stockholm.

Quentin is a Senior Manager of Machine Learning at Unity, currently leading the Muse LLM engineering teams. With over 7 years of experience in applying advanced AI and Machine Learning techniques in the video game industry, Quentin has a proven track record in AI architectures, large-scale deep learning, and the development of AI-driven solutions. At Unity, Quentin has been instrumental in enhancing the Unity Editor through Muse, an AI product designed to assist game developers in their creative processes. Previously, Quentin led AI initiatives at Unity Ads and Gameloft, focusing on user acquisition and Ad-tech innovations.

Grail Team Leader at QED Games. 9+ years of experience in gamedev, mainly as an AI programmer and lead AI programmer, with an interim adventure of serving as CEO of QED Games. Responsible for AI in multiple projects, ranging from simulation games to real time strategies. Co-creator of Grail - a multiplatform SDK for embedding advanced AI in games.

Rachel is an ML Researcher at Riot Games who is passionate in AI and its applications in games, including generative AI, reinforcement learning, computer vision and more.

Dr. Raluca D. Gaina (she/her/hers) is the co-founder and director of Tabletop R&D, and is currently a Lecturer in Game AI at Queen Mary University of London, where she obtained her Ph.D. in Intelligent Games and Games Intelligence. She has led innovative research in Simulation-Based decision-making and modern Tabletop Games, laying the foundation for the Tabletop Games Framework (TAG). She has co-organised top Game AI conferences, meetups, tutorials and competitions. She has over 30 publications in leading Game AI conferences (AAAI, COG) and journals (TOG), and received multiple awards for her public engagement videos. Her research interests include general video game playing AI, evolutionary algorithms and tabletop games.

Roberto Lopez Mendez is a Director at Arm. He studied Nuclear Physics but after a decade working in Physics, he discovered his real passion and since 1995 worked in 3D graphics for several companies. In 2012, Roberto joined Arm Demo Team and worked on developing highly optimized rendering techniques for mobile devices. He also regularly delivered workshops at different universities and talks at game development related events. Since 2020 Roberto tech-leads Arm Developer Advocacy Team working on showcasing developers how to make the most of different Arm technologies.

Rupam is a lawyer and partner at London media law firm Harbottle & Lewis.

He specialises in advising on the commercial relationships and key technologies that underpin the games industry. This includes advising on emerging tech like AI, cloud solutions, data monetisation, adtech, software licensing, outsourcing and consumer law.

Sam Devlin is a Principal Researcher in the Game Intelligence group at Microsoft Research. He received his PhD on multi-agent reinforcement learning in 2013 from the University of York; was a postdoc from 2013 to 2015, working on game analytics; and then was on the faculty from 2016 until joining Microsoft in 2018. Devlin has published more than 60 papers on reinforcement learning, imitation learning and game AI in leading academic venues and presents regularly at games industry events including Develop and the Game Developers Conference (GDC).

Tim studied Artificial Intelligence at VU Amsterdam. He joined Guerrilla in 2006 after completing his MSc thesis project on Killzone’s multiplayer bot AI. Since then he has worked on AI behaviors as well as AI engine tech for the Killzone series, Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West. He specializes in group behaviors and HTN planner technology.

Game AI developer with over five years of experience in making action game AI characters and systems. Brought the world gruesome power-through combat of the Space Marine 2

Will is the AI Lead for Ara: History Untold, a 4X grand strategy game from Oxide Games, and a PhD student at the University of Maryland, studying applied machine learning for digital content creation. He has a passion for making new things, especially in the realm of creative tools. The intersection of challenging technical problems and art is endlessly fascinating, and feels lucky every day to get to work in it! Beyond work, he enjoys spending time with their lovely partner, travel, running, and World of Warcraft (Blood and Thunder)

Yassine is the co-founder and CEO of Kinetix. Kinetix enables avatar self-expression in 3D virtual worlds & social platforms through a technology that covers the entire lifecycle from emote creation, to distribution, monetization & sharing.

Alan Zucconi is a Senior Lecturer, author and a passionate developer focused on the field of education. As a Science Communicator he is investigating the impact that AI has on society, from deepfakes to algorithmic bias. He currently works at Goldsmiths, University of London as Director of Postgraduate Studies, where he also directs the MA/MSc Computer Games programmes.

Duygu Cakmak is the R&D Director at Creative Assembly for the BAFTA award-winning Total War series. She oversees the R&D strategy and direction for the franchise. She joined Creative Assembly in 2015 as an AI programmer and after this, she moved into a Project Technical Director role.

Gabriel Robert has been working as a Game AI Developer since 1999 on many franchises, including Top Spin, Ghost Recon, and Assassin's Creed.
Since earning his PhD in 2005, his goal has been to bridge the gap between academic research and production, a pursuit he now fulfills as a lead R&D Developer.
As a strong believer in knowledge sharing as a foundation for innovation, Gabriel naturally chose to join the AI and Games Conference team.

George is the creator of Video Games Industry Memo and founder of Half-Space Consulting: a strategic consultancy that supports businesses as they seek to work within the video games industry.

Matthias is the head of AI at Splash Damage, and has worked as a programmer on titles including 'Sacred 3', 'Portal Knights', and was the AI lead on 'Gears Tactics'.

Sally joins the team with decades of experience in event planning and logistics. She has run large-scale international events over five continents. She’s calm in a crisis, always patiently waiting for the drama to show its face so that she can pull on her experience and come up with a solution, fast.

The voice of AI and Games.

Tommy consults with games studios and tech companies around the world on how to utilise AI in their projects: providing development support, consultancy, and professional training services on artificial intelligence in the video games.

With 20 years experience in AI for video games, Tommy has become a trusted voice in the game AI community as he acts as a public speaker, science communicator, and industry advocate. His successful YouTube series 'AI and Games', has accrued millions of views since it began in 2014.