Niantic Uses Meta Llama Models To Generate Creative Behaviours in Latest Mobile Game Peridot

Niantic Inc. is using Meta Llama models to generate creative behaviour in real time as players interact with creatures in the company’s latest AR game, Peridot. The game uses Meta's Llama 2 to enhance interactions with the lifelike virtual pets called Dots that exhibit smart, unpredictable behaviours akin to real animals.

By leveraging Llama 2, Dots can now react dynamically to their surroundings in real time, fostering deeper connections and a heightened sense of companionship for players. Players can have "conversations" with their Dots, and the creatures will respond with surprising and organic behaviours, such as expressing joy, curiosity, or mischief, bringing a sense of realism to the virtual pet experience.

"We are eager to see more models open-sourced to enable teams like ours to freely explore their capabilities without being caught in discussions around cost, privacy, and cloud dependencies," said Niantic Global Product Marketing Lead Asim Ahmed.

Implementing Llama 2 presented challenges in creating prompts that strike the right balance between expressiveness, creativity, and response time. The team addressed this by defining an expected response format in JSON, instantly improving the quality of the AI's responses.

Niantic plans to continue pushing the boundaries of generative AI in Peridot and explore new ways to elevate player interactions across devices. 

"Peridot's success with generative AI gives us a glimpse into what's possible, and we plan to elevate the way players interact with Peridot across devices," said Ahmed.

As they have done before with pioneering AR games like Pokémon GO, they are now innovating with virtual pets in their latest mobile AR adventure. Looking ahead, the company envisions a wide range of opportunities to leverage AI, such as Llama 2, to drive new areas of gameplay more procedurally. This opens up opportunities for the gaming industry to similarly leverage Meta Llama.