Razer's Project Ava: AI Gaming Coach Sparks Debate on Future of Gaming

I saw Razer's Project Ava in action and I'm convinced AI is ready to turn gaming on its head

Your phones, your laptops, your email, and sometimes, regrettably, your search engines. And naturally, as a tech category with lots of avid fans, gaming is seemingly up next. As it stands, there's a lot that tech companies think AI can offer to the world of gaming -- dialogue generation and simplified game development, just to name a couple. A real-time AI coach for League of Legends wasn't on my CES bingo card, but I got to see Ava in action and I'm now convinced AI is about to completely change the way lots of people play games -- for better and maybe worse. But before we get into that, let's start from the top: what even is an AI coach? In Razer's vision, that answer is a pretty broad one. Ava, at least in the vision laid out at CES, can do a lot, but the pillar of its usefulness is real-time coaching. In practice, this feature of Ava plays out just like you might think. Say you're playing League of Legends, for example, and you want to know which lane to push or which strategy to adopt to give you the best chances of winning. All you have to do is query Ava with a question and boom, you'll get a strategy tailored to your question. Where things get really interesting, however, is in how Ava comes up with the answer. Unlike other AI esports coaches, Ava's answers aren't just based on data from games of other people, it's based on what's happening in your game specifically. That's thanks to the use of Razer's vision analysis. In short: Ava is watching you play. That difference gives Ava a more personal approach than other AI coaches and could potentially make it more appealing for gamers who want specific questions on the fly. This would also give Ava an edge in more competitive gaming where even minor adjustments in the moment could make a big difference. And the coaching doesn't stop there. Razer also showed off another feature of Ava, which is a post-game analysis that breaks down what you may have done wrong or what you did right so you can adjust your play in the future. Again, that might not be a must-have feature for everyone, but if you're a competitive gamer who wants to elevate your play, then a little tough love might not be such a bad thing. So, what about the rest of us who enjoy gaming in a more casual, less eye-eroding, manner? Well, thankfully it's not all about esports. Razer is also envisioning Ava as a walkthrough coach for more single-player experiences like Black Myth: Wukong. If you're stuck on a boss, for example, you can have Ava give you some tips about timing -- when to dodge, when to block, when a special attack is coming. And again, the advice is tailored specifically to the game, meaning you're not getting general tips on RPGs, you're getting tips about the game you're playing in that moment. Razer also says it will adjust Ava's coaching style to your preferred level of involvement. If you want a more hands-off coach to sprinkle in tips here and there, then you could choose that. If you want a real step-by-step coach, then you could choose that too. I watched and listened to Ava's advice on a boss in Black Myth: Wukong and was impressed by its real-time coaching acumen during the fight. Whether Razer could actually deliver coaching with that speed in the real world is a different question entirely, but this is a concept after all, and with some suspension of disbelief included, it was fun to watch. And sure, YouTube could give you the same walkthrough, but why pause your game and trawl the internet for a tutorial when Ava can do it right there and then? If you're reading the description of Ava and yelling at your screen, I feel you. An AI gaming coach isn't for everyone, and in some ways, the idea also rubs me the wrong way. Playing a game, fighting a boss, and losing are all a part of the process of learning how to win in a game, but also (to put my philosophical hat on for a moment) learning how to love it. Game designers, at least good ones, spend a lot of time thinking about the difficulty and how much to instruct players on how to play the game, and making coaching so accessible might detract from the raw discovery and mystique of getting better at it. Lord knows I've watched my fair share of Elden Ring tutorials, but that's only after trying and failing to figure something out myself. And if an AI coach like Ava is constantly by your side making sure you don't miss something, it's worth asking what, if anything, is lost with that style of play. Those are all questions we can't answer, of course, but maybe not for long. Razer and other gaming companies seem intent on using AI for in-game guidance, and it's only a matter of time before we start to see more and more of their philosophies creep in. I might not be convinced that using Ava is the most rewarding way of playing a game, but Razer has convinced me of one thing: AI coaches are coming to a title new year whether you want them to or not.

CES 2025: Razer's AI Esports Coach Doesn't Understand Why I Play Video Games

Have you ever streamed Dark Souls before? Trust me, the last thing you want when you're struggling with a boss is for the chat to start piping in to tell you how to beat it -- an annoyance streamers have started to call "backseating." Now, imagine the chat is an AI and that it can interrupt your game's audio to tell you what to do. You've got Razer's new Project AVA. An "AI esports coach," Project AVA is essentially a companion that can watch your footage alongside you and provide you with advice as you play. This works for both single player and multiplayer titles, as I saw in demonstrations showing off AVA at work in both Black Myth: Wukong and League of Legends. While you play, AVA might tell you how to take down a particular boss, or which items will make for the best build, or where your opponents might be. It's not cheating, per se, since AVA can only see your screen and doesn't have information that you don't, but it certainly aims to up your awareness. For instance, it might keep track of your minimap in League to tell you where your opponents are. Or, in a single player game, it might tell you when the boss is about to attack, how long to dodge, and when you can punish. It can also answer questions, if you want to direct its advice. It's just a concept for now, but what I've seen has me worried that Razer might have lost the plot here. I play video games to engage with the challenges a developer has presented me and to solve their puzzles (yes, combat can be a puzzle). Figuring out a boss's tells or finding the most optimal build myself is part of the fun for me, and having an AI tell me what to do right away is more likely to make me feel spoiled on the content than supported. Worse, it could make me worse at the game, as I could start to lean on its advice rather than learning how to read attack patterns or understand what my gear is doing myself. AVA is also loud, and while I didn't have my hands on the controller myself, I worry it would distract me more than help, or at the very least interrupt my game's soundscape (which sometimes already gives you hints on what to do!). Then there's the issue of where AVA is getting its advice. For instance, if AVA's telling me how a boss attacks in Black Myth: Wukong, is it pulling that data from a guide, from the developers, or from collected footage of many playthroughs? If the former, it should probably be credited. If the latter, where did that training data come from? If the middle, then I'd prefer to see the hints developers have already given me, in the form of a boss's animations. Granted, I can see the appeal of getting some help once you're into the point of trying to master a game -- say, if you're practicing a speedrun or trying to climb the ladder in ranked. No player is an island, and I do look up guides from time to time. This does lead to maybe AVA's most promising features, in that Razer says it might base some advice on playstyles from specific esports superstars. An ideal version of AVA would be like having Faker looking over your shoulder while you play. But it could also easily go the other way. I play a lot of Final Fantasy XIV, and in that game, raiding can come across a bit like a choreographed dance. If AVA learns how each raid is played ahead of time and then simply tells me exactly what to do as I play, what am I getting out of that experience? Am I engaging with the game, or am I just pressing buttons while AVA has all the fun for me?

CES 2025: Razer's Project Ava AI Aims to Help You Get Better at Gaming

It can also offer feedback post-game to help you strategize for the next match. Back in 2017, Nvidia shared a video on the occasion of April's Fool Day, showcasing a plug-in drive called GeForce GTX-Assist. It was designed to analyze your gaming skills and take over the game on your behalf with AI's help. Well, I never in a million years could have imagined the Razer would actually be working on something like it, until they announced the new Project Ava. Project Ava aims to be the copilot that will "coach" you through games to help you get better at them. To accomplish this, the AI will take thousands of photos of your screen as you play. And then analyze them to give you suggestions on what you can do to beat bosses or have a leg up at competitive matches. According to The Verge, Project Ava was shown a prerecorded boss fight from last year's Black Myth: Wukong. In response, the AI replied with pretty responses like, "Get ready to dodge when his blade spins or glows with an orange tinge" or "Keep a close eye on his health, once you shave off 10 to 20 percent, get your dodge fingers ready". They also demoed League of Legends, where Ava suggested what spells and items you need based on the current scenario. It also gives out the enemy position since it captures multiple shots of the mini map, making it seem like you are almost cheating. Even after the match, the AI will continue suggesting tips, and details about your gameplay. It will offer feedback on how to improve next match. However, its responses were a bit delayed on the prototype at CES. Possibly because it was running locally on a pair of Nvidia RTX 4090 laptop GPU with Meta's Llama 3.2 LLM. Razer is going all in with Project Ava with no signs of slowing down. Razer also has a patent-pending algorithm on the way to suggest gaming tips and will run with its proprietary hardware. Honestly, all these details look interesting on the surface, but to me, it feels like Mircosoft Recall but for games. At the moment, Razer is training Ava with many gaming guides that are available online. But Razer isn't crediting those websites to make said guides. But that has become a standard with AI in tech. I feel it needs to do more than suggest loading-screen tips if it really wants to help you improve gameplay.

Razer has released a backseat gaming AI bot called Ava, and I'm not sure whether using it should be considered cheating or not

Will it be the "ultimate gaming copilot" like Razer says, or more like an annoying sibling shouting over your shoulder? Well, we all knew CES 2025 was going to be chock full of AI, didn't we? So it's not too surprising that we're seeing it rammed into every proverbial nook and cranny, even those that surely nobody could want. Razer's "Project Ava" is one such AI implementation that, at first glance, boggles and baffles. That's because it's essentially a backseat gamer, and it seems Razer might have missed the memo that "backseat gamer" is usually a derogatory term. But that's not entirely fair, because initial impressions aside, and as much as it pains me to say it about anything AI, Project Ava might have some genuine benefit for gamers. Project Ava, Razer says, can act as "the ultimate AI esports coach" and an "all-knowing AI game guide". It's essentially an AI assistant that monitors your gameplay and gives you vocalised hints in real time. The idea is that it can pull from lots of different sources to give you real-time advice while gaming, whether that's in a single-player game like Black Myth: Wukong or an esports title you might need a hand with. The bot, Razer says, offers "expert AI advice that draws from a wealth of community wisdom and knowledge bases. This allows gamers to stay fully immersed in the challenge without ever having to tab out. Gamers can bring up Ava while they are taking a quick break, hear Ava in their headset while they are in the action, or keep it simple with a chatbox. Whatever the choice, Ava is always game to help users win." Project Ava also includes AI-aided single-click PC and game optimisation, but that's less interesting to me than all this backseat gaming malarkey. Malarkey, that is, which the more cynical might consider to be a form of cheating. At the very least, Project Ava raises questions about where we want to draw the boundary between simple assistance and cheating. After all, one can have a build guide up to read while playing League of Legends, and we usually consider that to be fine. Does that assessment change if we have a bot vocally telling us what to buy and where to go? I don't have an answer to that, but I imagine as more and more tools like this inevitably crop up, we'll be seeing ongoing debates about these things. (I should also note that although Razer demonstrated Project Ava with League of Legends, Razer says Project Ava isn't endorsed by Riot Games.) It might, for instance, be most legitimately used while playing solo for practice. Thinking back to my Starcraft 2 days, I would certainly have benefitted from a real-time vocalisation of a chosen build order while playing, or even just a "probes and pylons" reminder. But I'm not sure how I'd feel about having access to that during a live 1v1. There's also the fact that, while we found Project Ava worked well in Razer's demo, it does seem to pull game guide data straight from the net for reference. Which is fine, I suppose, as those guides are public, but it brings up the same old "Should AI be able to repackage human-made content?" debates we're all already used to. It doesn't only pull from guide data, though. Razer says Ava considers pro player/coach insights, real-time event logs, item purchase history, public games played, public game guides/data, player gameplay style, player settings, and voice prompts. It works its AI magic on all that and spits out its in-game text, voice advice, or post-game analysis. If this is a sign of things to come in 2025, AI might really have us in for a brave new world of PC gaming before too long. Let's just hope it comes across as more "helpful coach" than "backseat gamer" in practice.

Razer's new AI coach could make you an esports superstar

Artificial intelligence continues to prove its worth as Razer just demonstrated at CES 2025 this week, announcing a Razer AI gaming coach called Project AVA. Yes, it seems that apart from morphing badly drawn stick figures into portraits worthy of Picasso and giving you someone kind to chat to when your cat runs away, AI bots can also make you a better gamer, or even an esports superstar - you better believe it! Razer has dubbed Project AVA the "ultimate AI gaming copilot, promising to deliver real-time insights from esports coaches." But it's not the first AI gaming coach we've encountered. Gamers may already be familiar with the likes of SenpAI that uses AI to analyze and coach player performance in games like League of Legends and Valorant. These tools can be extremely useful for helping break competitive players out of stagnate ruts, for honing skills, or just tweaking hardware settings for optimal gaming performance. Project AVA can do all those things from what we can gather from the scant details available. Razer's AI coach allows players to interact with an unobtrusive virtual interface as they play, listen to AVA provide advice through their headsets, or use a chatbot similarly for advice. Players can choose how they'd like to interact too, which means there's still a lot of control at their fingertips. While you're gaming, the AI coach will analyze your performance and metrics and offer insights and advice in real time as you play. You'll also be able to analyze your performance retrospectively via a personalized post-match recap that can highlight your key plays and areas for improvement. Most importantly, the advice you get from AVA comes from real pro players and esports coaches from Team Razer -- which gives the AI a certain amount of pro-grade credibility. It also means that if you're serious about becoming an esports star you can forget about paying costly fees to a real life coach. Additionally, the AI will provide a single-click game setup optimization that fine tunes your PC to your specific hardware and game requirements so that you get the best performance possible - boosted frames, short load times, and maximum graphics - if it all works, it sounds fantastic! Razer promises AVA will also provide players with an All-knowing AI Game Guide preventing them from having to tab out if they just want to know how to get through the next challenge, puzzle, or beat the next boss. Right now, that's all the details we have on Project AVA. Be sure to check in at Razer.com to register your interest and be notified by Razer when the beta lands sometime in the near future.

The Best Concept of CES 2025 was the Razer's AI esports coach, Project Ava

CES is not only a showcase of the best tech to come in the year ahead, it's also a place for manufacturers and developers to showcase some of their grander ideas for how breaking technologies can theoretically be applied in the consumer space several years from now. These concepts can sometimes steal the show, gifting us a look at a future yet to come. CES 2025 was no exception, and as you'd expect AI had a lot to do with many of the concepts we came across on showroom floors throughout Las Vegas, Nevada. However, one concept caught our eye in particular: Razer's real-time AI esports coach, Project Ava. CES is always full of products that may or may not come to fruition, but in that sea of concepts, one really stood out to us. Razer's Project Ava is an AI esports coach that works in real-time. That means, while you're mid-raid in League of Legends, you can get feedback on where to push or which items to use all without having to leave your game to trawl YouTube. What makes Razer's AI coach different than competitors is that it utilizes visual data from your game in addition to game data from other players. The result is a coach that's tailored to your specific scenario and play style. Razer also envisions Ava being used for non-esports play in games like Black Myth: Wukong to give real-time advice on how to beat bosses as well as post-match coaching for breakdowns on what you did right and wrong during your match. It's hard to say whether Project Ava, if it gets released in full, will actually live up to all of Razer's vision, but the idea is one that companies like Razer and its ilk are pursuing. Project Ava may be a concept right now, but it's also a template for gaming's AI future.

Razer enters AI space with new gaming assistant Project Ava - SiliconANGLE

American-Singaporean consumer electronics and gaming hardware maker Razer Inc. has entered the artificial intelligence space with the reveal of Project Ava, an AI-powered gaming assistant designed to enhance player performance by providing real-time strategic advice and post-match coaching. Project Ava works by analyzing game data during gameplay and offers immediate tips such as anticipating enemy attacks or suggesting optimal in-game actions. After matches, the AI delivers feedback, including replays and performance evaluations, to help players improve their skills. "From pro esports coach to omnipotent game guide to hardware optimization expert, say hello to the smartest gaming companion ever created," the Project Ava page reads. "Developed for gamers, by gamers, get real-time expert advice that improves your play with Project AVA, your dedicated AI gamer copilot." In a demo video, the AI states, "From real-time esports coaching to post-march evaluations, I learn from the best so you can play smarter in any game, offering expert advice." In another video, Razer shows Ava running through Black Myth: Wukong, giving advice and tips on what the player should be doing while playing, including attacks to dodge and what else to do within the game. Under the hood, Project Ava was built on Meta Platform's Inc. open-source Llama large language model, with Razer then training the AI on individual games. According to Digital Trends, Razer says that similarities between genres may allow knowledge of one game to carry over to another. While on the one hand, Project Ava could make gaming more accessible and enjoyable, it has also sparked discussions about the ethical implications of using AI in gaming. Concerns include the potential disruption of gameplay due to real-time advice and the fairness of utilizing AI-generated strategies. Questions have also been raised about the compensation and credit for content creators whose guides may have been used to train the AI. Project Ava is a concept so far and Razer has not indicated when or if it may be released to the general public. But as 2025 progresses, the idea behind Project Ava - the ability to not only view live content but provide advice and feedback is a feature of AI expected to boom this year, particularly through AI agents. Andy Thurai, vice president and principal analyst of Constellation Research Inc., told theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media Inc.'s livestreaming studio, in October that AI agents, particularly for automation, are set to reshape enterprise efficiency and decision-making.

Project Ava is Razer's stab at an all-knowing AI gaming copilot

CES 2025 Read and watch our complete CES coverage here Updated less than 1 minute ago Razer unveiled a new conceptual tech project at CES 2025 that it has dubbed Project Ava. The hardware company calls it "the ultimate AI gaming copilot," as it would theoretically help players get through tough spots in games and act as a personal esports coach. Every year, Razer reveals a few conceptual products at CES. These are more aspirational experiments rather than actual products, but they sometimes become a reality after the show. For instance, Razer revealed an RGB face mask during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021. That later became the Zephyr, a smart mask that landed Razer in legal trouble after users claimed the company misrepresented its N95 certification. This year's concept is likely to stir up some controversy of its own. Recommended Videos Project Ava is an AI assistant that could theoretically have multiple functions. For esports players, it could generate post-game reports that give players tips on how to improve. Razer also claims that it could assist players more generally in games by helping them solve puzzles, beat bosses, or complete quests by drawing on community knowledge. It could even help players optimize their game's graphics settings with a click of a button, in theory. In a demo video, Razer shows Ava running during a Black Myth: Wukong boss fight. A robotic voice barks out tips as the fight progresses, explaining which attacks to dodge and what to do once its health bar drops below 20%. During CES, Razer showed off a demo of it being used during a round of Dota 2. Project Ava's natural language is built on Llama, Meta's open-source AI model. From there, Ava was trained on individual games, though Razer says that similarities between genres may allow knowledge on one game to carry over to another. All of that raises some ethical questions that Razer would have to answer if Project Ava became a reality. Where would such an AI tool pull specific game tips like puzzle solutions from, for example? Would it need to scrape guides from websites like Digital Trends to accomplish that or is its current training enough? And would it technically be cheating for someone to have a voice in their ear telling them what to do in an esports competition? Razer says that it's not quite grappling with those questions yet as Ava is just an internal concept, but it plans to work directly with developers and creators if it decides to make it a reality. "Currently, Project Ava is only available as an internal concept demo," Razer says in a statement to Digital Trends. "As we develop this product further, we will carefully review all data sources and be sure we are working with game developers and content partners. It will be reviewed for legal compliance and made available as opt-in only once Ava is ready for broader beta testing." As for how it would all work, Razer says that there are a few forms Project Ava could take. It could be available via a chatbox or even appear as a voice in players' headsets. It's a bit of a loose concept compared to previous Razer CES experiments, but the company plans to test it via an upcoming beta for both developers and players.

Razer enters AI market with new gaming assistant Project Ava - SiliconANGLE

Razer enters AI market with new gaming assistant Project Ava American-Singaporean consumer electronics and gaming hardware maker Razer Inc. has entered the artificial intelligence market with the reveal of Project Ava, an AI-powered gaming assistant designed to enhance player performance by providing real-time strategic advice and post-match coaching. Project Ava works by analyzing game data during gameplay and offers immediate tips such as anticipating enemy attacks or suggesting optimal in-game actions. After matches, the AI delivers feedback, including replays and performance evaluations, to help players improve their skills. "From pro esports coach to omnipotent game guide to hardware optimization expert, say hello to the smartest gaming companion ever created," the Project Ava page reads. "Developed for gamers, by gamers, get real-time expert advice that improves your play with Project AVA, your dedicated AI gamer copilot." In a demo video, the AI states, "From real-time esports coaching to post-march evaluations, I learn from the best so you can play smarter in any game, offering expert advice." In another video, Razer shows Ava running through Black Myth: Wukong, giving advice and tips on what the player should be doing while playing, including attacks to dodge and what else to do within the game. Under the hood, Project Ava was built on Meta Platform's Inc. open-source Llama large language model, with Razer then training the AI on individual games. According to Digital Trends, Razer says that similarities between genres may allow knowledge of one game to carry over to another. While on the one hand, Project Ava could make gaming more accessible and enjoyable, it has also sparked discussions about the ethical implications of using AI in gaming. Concerns include the potential disruption of gameplay due to real-time advice and the fairness of utilizing AI-generated strategies. Questions have also been raised about the compensation and credit for content creators whose guides may have been used to train the AI. Project Ava is a concept so far and Razer has not indicated when or if it may be released to the general public. But as 2025 progresses, the idea behind Project Ava - the ability to not only view live content but provide advice and feedback is a feature of AI expected to boom this year, particularly through AI agents. Andy Thurai, vice president and principal analyst of Constellation Research Inc., told theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media Inc.'s livestreaming studio, in October that AI agents, particularly for automation, are set to reshape enterprise efficiency and decision-making.

GRTV News - Razer unveils gaming companion Project Ava at CES

Will this be the future of how AI impacts multiplayer and video game experiences? "Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of GRTV News. Today we're going to be talking about one of the big announcements, or maybe not big announcements, but one of the announcements that came from CES as of late. We've seen lots of really exciting things including some more expected things like the new RTX 50 series line of graphics cards from Nvidia, various new CPUs, all these different PC components, and various other new gadgets as well, many of which are utilising, particularly in the PC space, these new era of components." "But what we've also seen is some companies, as is always the case with CES, reveal some more quirky and unusual things. And for Razer, they have decided now to further explore the software side of things and have announced a new AI companion that is supposed to help you improve your gaming. Now, the reason why we're talking about it today is because it has, I think, it's going to have some weird sort of repercussions in a way. But anyway, before we get into those repercussions and what there could spout from them, let's dive on in and see what this companion is. So Razer's Ava AI, the ultimate gaming wingman or just plain cheating, is Razer's Project Ava, the future of gaming assistance, or will it be just another annoying backseat gamer? So CES 2025 has brought an interesting contender to the gaming scene, Razer's Project Ava. This AI bot is designed to be your very own gaming co-pilot, offering real-time advice while you play. It's like having a coach in your ear, but instead of a professional guiding you, it's an AI pulling from a mix of community wisdom and pro player insights. Ava's got your back with tips on everything from item purchases to gameplay strategies. Sounds like a dream, right? But the question remains, where's the line between helpful advice and straight-up cheating? Project Ava works by analysing your game, spitting out personalised tips and offering post-match analysis. It even helps with single-click game optimisation, which might sound like magic for anyone who's ever struggled to adjust settings mid-game. But here's the catch, some might argue that having an AI constantly whispering in your ear could take the game out of gaming. Is it really fair to have an AI guide you through every move while you're in a competitive match? The big debate now is whether this kind of assistance crosses into the realm of cheating." "We don't mind looking at guides for games like League of Legends, so what's the difference when a bot is telling us exactly what to do? While Ava could certainly help you improve in solo play, how would it feel if someone used it in a competitive multiplayer match? What do you think? Would you welcome Ava as your ultimate gaming sidekick, or would it make you feel like you're cheating the system? And you can sort of see little bits of what it's referring to here, as in these are the item picks that you should want for the characters you're playing and little sort of hints as to how you should do it and stuff like that." "To me this is a really interesting thing because it sort of paints the direction of, well the next direction that AI is going to take I think when it comes to video games. We've seen it used in multiple different ways in regards to improving performance, but now we're seeing it stretch into helping players crack video games. And I think that while I do think there's an element of this that is probably a little bit, it kind of breaks the integrity of online gaming a little bit I think." "In many ways having something basically spit out information that it's pulling from elsewhere, you know, information that other players will probably have had to go out of their way to actually discover for themselves. What I will say though is that I think that there is an element of this that can be applied to, for example, single player games." "Games that maybe have struggled in the past to properly sort of teach players how to utilise the systems in place in said game in the most sort of complex manner. You know, you've been playing a game and maybe the tutorial will come up and it'll give you a, it'll just tell you something in one line of text and you think to yourself that's great, but if I don't master that mechanic as you're telling me right this instance then I'm going to forget about it and probably never use it. And that's probably an element here that where having an AI companion that sort of watches you as you play and says, oh by the way you can do this." "I think that that's, there might be something there especially for the single player side of things. And again for cooperative gaming it seems like a good idea as well to help you on your way, but I do think that there needs to be some sort of limits put in place for competitive multiplayer because it's just going to, well I think it's just going to start once again adding further fuel to the fire in regards to almost like kind of like pay to win side of things, which already exists by the way in a lot of competitive multiplayer games. Not just in, you know, being able to buy items in game or something like that, but we're talking technology, especially on PC because who has a better chance of winning the game on PC? The person with a much more powerful computer running the game in a much more fluid state, or someone running the game in a more, in a significantly worse state. So I don't know, I'm not too sure. I think there's a lot of, I think there's potential with this idea, but I think there's also concerns. So let's know what you think about it in the below. Do you think Razer's gaming wingman companion, whatever you want to call it, do you think it's a sign of the future? Do you think it's something that is potentially going in the wrong direction? Let me know all about it in the comments below, otherwise I'll see you all on the next episode of GXTV News. Take care, everyone."

Razer's Ava AI: The ultimate gaming wingman or just plain cheating?

CES 2025 has brought an interesting contender to the gaming scene: Razer's Project Ava. This AI bot is designed to be your very own "gaming copilot," offering real-time advice while you play. It's like having a coach in your ear, but instead of a professional guiding you, it's an AI pulling from a mix of community wisdom and pro-player insights. Ava's got your back with tips on everything from item purchases to gameplay strategies. Sounds like a dream, right? But the question remains -- where's the line between helpful advice and straight-up cheating? Project Ava works by analysing your game, spitting out personalised tips, and offering post-match analysis. It even helps with single-click game optimisation, which might sound like magic for anyone who's ever struggled to adjust settings mid-game. But here's the catch: some might argue that having an AI constantly whispering in your ear could take the "game" out of gaming. Is it really fair to have an AI guide you through every move while you're in a competitive match? The big debate now is whether this kind of assistance crosses into the realm of cheating. After all, we don't mind looking at guides for games like League of Legends, so what's the difference when a bot is telling us exactly what to do? While Ava could certainly help you improve in solo play, how would it feel if someone used it in a competitive multiplayer match? What do you think -- would you welcome Ava as your ultimate gaming sidekick, or would it make you feel like you're cheating the system?

Razer Project Ava: would you pay an AI to help you get good at games?

I felt weird about this almost immediately. While it could be more convenient than looking up a guide, it doesn't credit or compensate the creators of the guides that Razer ingests in order to train its AI. It would be pretty disruptive if Ava spent time telling me that Verge sister site Polygon crafted that guide, after all! And yet, Ava did sound pretty disruptive regardless, seemingly interrupting the game's audio to tell the player what to do. I suppose you might only summon Ava when you need help, but it still feels like a bit of a weird fit for Razer, a company that's long associated itself with elite gamers. (There's also a long conversation about how "female" AI can perpetuate harmful stereotypes, but at least Razer global marketing director David Ng tells us it'll offer other voices in the future.)