Francis
Vice President of Data and AI at Sega, responsible for Sega's strategy and implementation in the data and artificial intelligence domain.
Timeline (last 90 days)
Francis, Vice President of Data and AI at Sega, described how his workflow shifted from having Copilot refactor code in VS Code to opening only a terminal and not looking at the code, directly having the agent build a bookmark-sharing tool, which has basic UX capabilities but is not yet ready for release.
Francis stressed that off-the-shelf foundation models may not understand a game's worldview and backstory, so high-quality data and human oversight are both indispensable, and humans should review generated code before committing it.
The three executives Haiyan, Ryan Valenza and Francis agreed that agentic AI will not make professional teams unnecessary for game development, but the way professional expertise is applied will change.
Francis admitted that Sega's experience with generative dialogue and story is "still a bit rough" and not fully ready, and that its current focus is more on the pre-production stage, using AI to understand how dialogue lands and how the story feels.
All Facts (4)
Francis, Vice President of Data and AI at Sega, described how his workflow shifted from having Copilot refactor code in VS Code to opening only a terminal and not looking at the code, directly having the agent build a bookmark-sharing tool, which has basic UX capabilities but is not yet ready for release.
50%UnverifiedFrancis stressed that off-the-shelf foundation models may not understand a game's worldview and backstory, so high-quality data and human oversight are both indispensable, and humans should review generated code before committing it.
50%UnverifiedThe three executives Haiyan, Ryan Valenza and Francis agreed that agentic AI will not make professional teams unnecessary for game development, but the way professional expertise is applied will change.
50%UnverifiedFrancis admitted that Sega's experience with generative dialogue and story is "still a bit rough" and not fully ready, and that its current focus is more on the pre-production stage, using AI to understand how dialogue lands and how the story feels.
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