With Peridot, our goal has always been to leverage the latest cutting-edge technology at our fingertips to bring to life adorable creatures in delightful, whimsical, and life-like ways. With our launch earlier this year we brought back the nostalgia of virtual pets reimagined to our modern day and into our real world with augmented reality. We’re now excited to be leaning into generative AI to bring even more life to your Dots – allowing them to react in unexpected and surprising ways to the different things they find in the real world – just like a real pet would do.

For example, just as you might not know how your puppy would react to seeing a cat on the street, your Dot will react in unpredictable ways, too. Will they growl, bark, or dive after it? If you leave a plate of food sitting out, will your Dot steal a bite, or roll around in your leftovers? Using generative AI, Dots in Peridot will likewise demonstrate unique, random, surprising or plain adorable reactions when encountering new objects, giving the impression that the Dots are learning and understanding the world around them.

Using previous game design techniques, our teams would have needed to manually program a limited range of reactions for Dots when they encounter various things in the world. However, with generative AI, the team can dramatically increase the possible behaviors when Peridots encounter new stimuli, for example, another animal, a plate of food, or a bouquet of flowers. That means your Dot may now pull from a vast library of unused animations, as though the Dot is learning, adapting and demonstrating personality like living creatures.

We’re excited to get this new feature released in Peridot very soon.

To learn more about how this all works, you can read more about this update on our Niantic blog.

–The Peridot team