Ubisoft have a new gaming buddy for you

Ubisoft have announced their first personal gaming assistant and his name is Sam! He is armed with Google Cloud’s Dialogflow technology and will soon be available to chat with, ask questions and provide helpful hints and tips based on analysing your online matches. For now, he is available only in English and only in Canada but the open beta will be extended to other countries over the next few months.

Anybody that has put their self respect aside long enough to try and have a conversation with Siri or Google Assistant will tell you that chat bots are cool. Who can forget Microsoft’s AI chatbot Tal and it’s somewhat offensive outbursts on Twitter after they made the mistake of letting it learn from random humans. Fortunately Sam appears to me more restrained, happy to assist gamers find easter eggs, trailers and information.

The idea is to create a personalised experience for gamers. As far as helping with gameplay, Sam will review your recent matches and provide tips for next time. Whether these are solicited or not is unclear, hopefully after a match has gone horribly wrong he is smart enough to let the rage subside before chiming in with his two cents. I know if I had a gruelling match go the wrong way, know it all Sam telling me my failings may not go down well.

Sam will also be the point of call for Ubisoft’s Q&A so he will be there to help with general questions about Ubisoft products, services and technical assistance so hopefully gamers can give message boards a miss.  He is currently in BETA and Ubisoft intend to add more features as his development progresses.

Sam lives inside the Ubisoft Club Mobile app and will respond to either voice commands or text input. Given the investment by Ubisoft in the technology he should be heading our way shortly. As gaming helplines have gone the way of the dodo, hopefully Sam can fill the gap and become a useful gaming companion. Who knows, maybe one day he will be able to join in a game or join your team for some online play.

Download him and say Hi!