Of all the horrific ways AI has begun to creep into game development and the games we play, one of the most despairing examples I've seen lately was Microsoft's GDC presentation about its planned Copilot integration inside Xbox.
Remember as you watch this video (captured by our former colleague Ethan Gach): Microsoft developed this feature, booked this showcase, worked on a presentation and then showed it to the world, all without anyone involved at any point in the process putting a stop to it.
Here's how Gaming Copilot will work on Xbox when it arrives later this year. According to Microsoft, 19 percent of early usage was just to chat with the AI as a companion. The guides are seemingly lifted without credit from the internet. It's unclear if that will change before console launch.
— AmericanTruckSongs10 (@ethangach.bsky.social) 2026-03-14T19:28:48.604Z
I saw a lot of reactions to this video over the weekend, mentioning everything from potential theft (just where is this disembodied voice getting this information?) through to the intrusiveness of the feature itself, which like so many other AI implementations is coming to your Xbox whether you want it to or not.
But the thing I couldn't shake was: is this how little these people think of us? Do they think we, adults spending what little free time and money we have on these specific video games, are simply enormous babies? That we are mindless meat sacks happy to just sit there mashing on an AI button as content is foie gras-ed down our throats?
Like, what the fuck is this feature for? What do they think we are playing video games for? Video games are many things: they are art, they are challenge, they are entertainment, they are product. But they're all born of design, and one of the key foundations of game design is this:
isnt one of the core tenets of game design meant to be making players *feel* smart and powerful by subtly assisting them without them noticing? this feels fundamentally incompatible with that whole idea, and if anything just encourages lazier design
— james (@jaames.co.uk) 2026-03-15T02:10:31.183Z
We're supposed to be challenged, we're supposed to poke around, we're supposed to learn from things and get better at games because that's what games--not just video games, all games--are. Yes, we've always had guides and FAQs and friends, but those have all been kept at some distance from the game itself, not integrated right inside it, right there, an AI always waiting for the chance to interrupt and vomit its vocalised predictive text right over the top of your experience.
And yes, this isn't mandatory. You don't have to activate it. But that's not the point. The point is I'm despairing at the mindset that has led to this feature's design and implementation in the first place, the fact senior people at a major console platform think so little of their users--and care so little for the point of video games themselves--that I'm having to write this blog and you're sitting here reading it.
I remember when I was 11 and, after school one day, went to a local arcade (The Metro!) that was right next door to a spot where all the tough kids hung out (The Snakepit!). I had sixty cents–enough for one round of Street Fighter II–and when my turn came I dropped my coins in and got ready to play. But before I could even pick a character, one of those tougher, bigger kids suddenly appeared, leaned over the cabinet and said “I can beat this guy for you”.
Nervous and not wanting to start some shit with a kid who had three years, 30kg and a moustache over me, I croaked a little agreement and he, picking Guile and going up against Ken, went to work. He knew how to play the basics, I guess, pulling off special moves and making a spectacle of it, but after what can’t have been more than a minute he’d lost two rounds and that was it.
My money was gone, I felt like shit and I hadn’t even got to play the video game. I imagine that’s pretty much what this feature is going to feel like.
