The robotics industry wants humanoids to become part of everyday life, taking on work in homes and offices. Billions of dollars are flowing toward machines capable of increasingly complex physical tasks. The humanoid robot maker Figure raised more than $1 billion last year at a $39 billion valuation, while the robotics software startup Skild AI secured $1.4 billion in January to develop artificial intelligence that can control different kinds of robots.

But working alongside people requires understanding incomplete instructions and adapting when someone changes their mind midway through a task. A robot that needs constant explanations could leave its owner supervising the very work they hoped to hand over.

Krafton believes its video game experience could help solve that problem. The South Korean developer behind PUBG: Battlegrounds has spent nearly two decades creating virtual worlds where software responds to unpredictable player decisions. Its Palo Alto subsidiary, Ludo Robotics, is now applying that expertise to AI that helps robots understand human requests and decide how to act.

CH Kim, CEO of both companies, sees Krafton’s experience developing AI teammates as a starting point. Developed with the chipmaker Nvidia, PUBG Ally is what the companies describe as “the world’s first voice-enabled coplayable character (CPC),” an AI teammate that goes beyond traditional nonplayable characters (NPCs) by cooperating with players, adapting to gameplay and remembering previous interactions.

“We’ve been developing AI in the form of nonplayer characters, or NPCs, for our video games even before the recent wave of interest in the [AI] sector.

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