In this first of two episodes exploring AI and gaming, Jem, Matt, and Alex discuss the arrival of AI co-pilots — new tools from Microsoft and Google designed to sit within your game and offer real-time hints, walkthroughs, and quest support.

The team examine whether these helpers could make games more accessible and inclusive, or if they risk taking over and removing the joy (and sometimes frustration) of discovery. We discuss how AI advice compares to walkthroughs, guides, and playground tips that have long been part of gaming culture, and consider whether convenience might come at the cost of creativity and community engagement.

Will using AI co-pilots blur the line between helping and cheating? Or could they usher in lazy game design? If we rely too heavily on AI, do we risk losing access to our own critical thinking? 

We discuss the very nature of challenge, support and accessibility, before circling back to one key theme, trust. Can we truly depend on AI to provide the right advice when it still generates incorrect answers and risks stripping away the human touch that makes gaming culture so rich? What will we lose if we no longer rely on walkthroughs written with care, the sibling hints shouted across the room and the sense of solving something for yourself?

In part two, we will explore what happens when AI begins to influence the characters we meet and the worlds we inhabit.

Join the conversation by sharing your thoughts on AI, gaming, and what “help” really means.

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