Purnendu Mukherjee, CEO of Convai, shares insights into innovative approaches to developing human-like AI characters that can intelligently interact with users, perform actions, and engage in natural and responsive conversations. This discussion sheds light on the future of interactive gaming, educational tools, and real-world applications of AI NPCs, from Mukherjee's personal journey, which sparked his deep interest in the mechanics of the human mind and AI, to the technical challenges and societal impacts of integrating AI within virtual spaces. OUTLINE: 0:00 Introduction to Convai and AI NPCs 1:19 Purnendu's background and how he got into working on AI NPCs 04:22 - Current limitations of AI NPCs and what's needed to make them indistinguishable from humans 5:00 - Technical Challenges and Innovations 07:34 - Overcoming latency issues with AI NPCs 08:50 - Potential AI applications in gaming and why AI NPCs are attracting significant funding 15:17 - Differentiating factors and focus areas for Convai compared to competitors 19:19 - Steps for developers to integrate Convai's technology into a game 24:12 - Comparing effort and impact of using AI NPCs vs traditional dialogue trees and behavior trees 29:25 - Economics and business model of Convai - pricing for different types of games 34:31 - Bringing down costs for games with massive usage and appeal to global audiences 38:48 - Early traction and use cases Convai is seeing from customers today 43:18 - Potential for AI to enable new kinds of gaming experiences 47:55 - Feasibility of doing a fully AI-driven Dungeons & Dragons game with current technology 50:16 - Optionality if Convai solves AI NPCs for gaming to expand to other domains 53:14 - Purnendu's entrepreneurial learnings and the meaningful suffering of a startup journey 59:04 - Constructive criticism from GDC and Convai's commitment to enabling great art 59:55 - Conclusion 👇 EPISODE LINKS: - Conv.ai: https://conv.ai/ - Purnendu Mukherjee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/purn3ndu/ SUBSCRIBE TO GAMEMAKERS: - Newsletter: https://gamemakers.com/ 😃 —CONNECT WITH ME! — • MY INSTAGRAM → @jokim1 • TWITTER → @jokim1 • LINKEDIN → https://www.linkedin.com/in/jokim/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/gamemakers/message