7th International Summer School on Artificial Intelligence and Games

International Summer School on AI and Games 2025

The 7th International Summer School on Artificial Intelligence and Games will be held in Malmö, Sweden 23-27 June 2025!

The summer school is dedicated to the uses of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques in and for games. After introductory lectures that explain the background and key techniques in AI and games, the school will introduce participants the uses of AI for playing games, for generating content for games, and for modeling players.

This school is suitable for industrial game developers, designers, programmers and practitioners, but also for graduate students in games, artificial intelligence, design, human-computer interaction, and computational intelligence.

The main lecturers are Georgios N. Yannakakis and Julian Togelius, co-authors of the AI and Games textbook (http://www.gameaibook.org), the first comprehensive textbook on the use of AI in games. During the first phase of the school theoretical lectures will be complemented by guest lectures on special topics in game AI and by hands-on workshops given by world-leading practitioners. For the second phase of the school, we plan a game AI jam on the taught material.

The 7th International Summer School on AI and Games
is organised by modl.ai & Innovation at Keywords Studios

Modl.ai creates unique AI solutions that empower game developers and publishers around the world by automating the repetitive, time-consuming, and expensive parts of development and enhancing player engagement by embedding AI technology in key development stages. Modl.ai is paving the way for the future of game development through simulation and behaviour automation, making advanced AI and ML tools that were once exclusive to big studios available to everyone.

Partners

More partners will be revealed soon...

Main Organizers

Georgios N. Yannakakis
Co-Founder & Research Director | modl.ai
Professor | IDG, University of Malta

Georgios N. Yannakakis (yannakakis.net) is a Co-Founder and Research Director (Malta) of modl.ai, and a Professor at the Institute of Digital Games, University of Malta. He is a leading expert in the game artificial intelligence research field with core theoretical contributions in machine learning, evolutionary computation, affective computing and player modelling, computational creativity and procedural content generation. He has published more than 300 papers and his work has been cited broadly. He has attracted funding from several EU and national research agencies and received multiple awards for published work in top-tier journals and conferences. His work has been featured in New Scientist, Science Magazine, The Guardian, Le Monde and other venues. He is regularly invited to give keynote talks at the most recognised conferences in his areas of research activity and has organised a few of the most respected conferences in the areas of game AI and game research. He is an IEEE Fellow for contributions to affective computing and artificial intelligence applied to games and the Editor in Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Games. He has been an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games and the IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing journals. He is the co-author of the Artificial Intelligence and Games Textbook.

Julian Togelius
Co-Founder & Research Director | modl.ai
Associate Professor | NYU Tandon

Julian Togelius (julian.togelius.com) is a Co-Founder and Research Director (New York) of modl.ai, and an Associate Professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering. Previously, he was an Associate Professor at the Center for Computer Games Research, IT University of Copenhagen and among the founders of the procedural content generation research field. Togelius has introduced core procedural generation paradigms and frameworks for game content such as the Experience-driven Procedural Content Generation (EDPCG) framework and the Search-based Procedural Content Generation (SBPCG) paradigm which define two of the leading research trends within procedural content generation. EDPCG couples player experience modelling and procedural content generation so that game content is generated in a personalised manner for affecting the experience of the player and SBPCG offers a taxonomy for the generation of game content through search. He co-edited the first book on Procedural Content Generation in Games. Togelius' research has appeared in respected international media such as New Scientist, and Le Monde. He is the co-author of the Artificial Intelligence and Games textbook.

Guest Speakers

c67136addece4947186f87eea1e8fe4d_compress

Elvis Liu
Principal Engineer | Tencent

Dr Elvis Liu is a Principal Engineer at Tencent, where he leads multiple research and development teams specializing in game AI, generative AI, animations, game engine, physics simulation, and distributed virtual environments. As Tencent Games’ highest-ranking technical leader, his most remarkable achievements include spearheading the development of sparring AI agents for Naruto Mobile, the first commercial fighting game to incorporate deep reinforcement learning. He also created F.A.C.U.L., the world’s first FPS AI companion capable of seamless interaction with human players through natural language.

Before joining Tencent, Elvis was an Assistant Professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, where he taught courses in virtual reality, modeling and simulation, and game development. He was also an IRCSET Fellow of Ireland and worked for IBM Ireland on exascale supercomputing systems. He has been an Associate Editor of the Springer Encyclopedia of Computer Graphics and Games and a frequent speaker at the Game Developers Conference (GDC).

More speakers will be revealed soon...

Organizing Committee

Antonios Liapis
Associate Professor | IDG, University of Malta

Antonios Liapis is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Digital Games, University of Malta, where he bridges the gap between game technology and game design in courses focusing on human-computer creativity, digital prototyping and game development. His research focuses on Artificial Intelligence as an autonomous creator or as a facilitator of human creativity. His work includes computationally intelligent tools for game design, as well as computational creators that blend semantics, visuals, sound, plot and level structure to create horror games, adventure games and more. He has also co-organized numerous game jams, and has participated in even more!

David Melhart
Postdoctoral Researcher | IDG, University of Malta

David Melhart is a Postdoctoral AI Researcher at the Institute of Digital Games, University of Malta. His research focuses on User Research, Player Modelling, Annotation Tools for Affective Computing, and Ethics in Game AI. He was a keynote speaker and panellist at the 26th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence 2023 - Ethics of Game AI Workshop EGAI @ ECAI 2023, Communication Chair of FDG 2020, Workshop and Panels Chair of FDG2023, has been a recurring Organizer and Publicity Chair of the Summer School series on Artificial Intelligence and Games (2018-2024), and currently serves as an Editorial Assistant to the IEEE Transactions on Games.

Local Organizers

José Font
Associate Professor | University of Malmö

José is Associate Professor in Computer Science at Malmö University and holds a PhD in artificial intelligence from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.

His research focuses on artificial intelligence and computational intelligence in games, exploring the ways in which AI can be a productive and creative tool during the video game development process, such as procedural content generation and mixed-initiative creative tools. He is also active in gamification, e-learning, and purposeful games.

Raquel Robinson
Associate Senior Lecturer | University of Malmö

Raquel Robinson is a joint Associate Senior Lecturer at MAU and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at IT University of Copenhagen. As part of her fellowship (project RAGE), she looks into hidden assumptions and implicit understandings surrounding emotion within biofeedback and affect-adaptive games. Previously, she has been a postdoctoral fellow at University of California, Santa Cruz and Ontario Tech University.

Raquel is particularly interested in playful and social embodied experiences such as live action roleplay, affective and biofeedback games, and how they can be used to connect people. Her work has been featured in Polygon and New Scientist.

Alberto Alvarez
Associate Senior Lecturer | University of Malmö

Alberto Alvarez is Associate Senior Lecturer and former PhD student (graduated fall 2022) at the faculty of technology and society at Malmö University.

His research focuses on exploring and developing Human-AI collaborative systems to co-create games and creative content, investigating Human-AI roles, properties, and interactions. His research interests and past work includes Human-AI collaboration systems, PCG, Quality-Diversity Algorithms, and Designer Models. He is also interested in making computer science topics such as Artificial Intelligence more accesible to society and other fields.

Program

Each year we strive to bring a diverse program from different aspects of applied AI research and game development.
Please find the program of each previous summer school under their respective page.