Microsoft will improve Xbox technical support using artificial intelligence

MicrosoftThe giant behind Xbox, You're testing an AI tool that could revolutionize the way you solve customer support issuesacts as a virtual technical support agent.

First announced by The Verge on Tuesday, Microsoft is deploying productive AI to answer user queriestesting an internal prototype of an animated character that uses voice or text to examine supporting topics and provide answers.

This new AI prototype is inspired by its extensive video game library Microsoft's latest attempt to create a digital assistant, after discontinuing the Halo-inspired Cortana in 2023.

We're testing the Xbox Virtual Support Agent, an internal prototype of an animated character that can query Xbox Support topics by voice or text. The prototype makes it quick and easy for players to get help with support issues using natural language, pulling information from existing Xbox support pages.

Haiyan Zhang, General Manager of Xbox Game AI

The chatbot will start interactions with customers by asking: “How can I help you today?” From there, The Verge reports, users can have a conversation with an AI agent about the problem they want solved.

The Xbox prototype is the latest AI-powered project from a Microsoft-owned company. On Monday, IGN interviewed a Blizzard Entertainment executive, who detailed how the company uses artificial intelligence to help its artists design games.

When fitting the armor to the characters – you see how many different characters we have – our artists had to go through it and build it for the human form and then they had to adapt all this stuff to all the different body shapes, the horns and the big noses and the chins and all that. This job is not particularly fun for them.

John Hite, director of the Warcraft series

In January, Call of Duty publisher Activision released preliminary data from its AI-powered monitoring tool ToxMod, which the company launched in August. Activision uses ToxMod to identify “disruptive” comments in 14 languages ​​in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, Modern Warfare III, and Call of Duty: Warzone.

Thanks to this tool, Call of Duty has seen an 8% reduction in the number of repeat offenders since implementing in-game voice chat moderation. Anyone found to have violated the Code of Conduct will receive actions such as globally muting voice and text chat and/or restricting other social features.

In addition to its gaming AI initiatives, Microsoft is also integrating generative AI into its Office suite of tools, the Windows operating system, and even its AI-powered keyboard switch. In September, Microsoft unveiled the new AI Copilot that replaces Cortana in Windows 11 and Microsoft 365. Through its partnership with ChatGPT developer OpenAI, Microsoft has also integrated OpenAI's image-generating AI model, Dall-E 3.