How AI Is Already Transforming Industries: The New 10x Environment Taking Shape

ChatGPT 4 was just released this past March, yet in just a few months, it has already started to shift the landscape of how we develop materials and assets across industries.   

As CTO at Perforce Software, I am deeply interested in how new and emerging technologies shape and redefine well-established workflows and processes. In my nearly 30 years of software development experience, few technological advancements have been as exciting and as far-reaching as generative AI.  

 A recent study conducted by OpenAI estimated that technologies like ChatGPT could impact 47% of all tasks, cutting time spent on them in half. That forecast is compelling on its own, but I’ve been really intrigued to see how the technology has already started to live up to that expectation.   

AI Is Already Delivering on Its Game-Changing Promise 

Think back to just a few years ago. Facebook changed its name to Meta in 2021, and industries began to invest and buy into a future where virtual experiences would become a part of everyone’s day-to-day interactions. Just last year, Gartner predicted that 25% of people will spend an hour per day in the Metaverse by 2026. Though I do see a future where AR and VR will become more commonplace, the hardware and the adoption rates don’t seem to be quickening enough to meet those expectations. Even with consideration of the Apple Vision Pro (and its expected successor), we aren’t likely to realize those rates for many years. 

The technology behind language learning models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, however, are seeing a steep adoption curve. OpenAI, Midjourney, Anthropic and others have all packaged and delivered easy-to-use products accessible through a web browser or app — no hardware required. The masses are now raving about the results, instead of just the potential. 

Generative AI features and enhancements are already becoming integrated in the core tools and workflows creators use to develop games and visual effects, like Photoshop, Blender, and Maya. The studios we’ve talked to recently are already experimenting with gen AI, and it’s helping them iterate and innovate more quickly.  

The 10x Environment 

With today’s distributed teams and collaboration, we are creating more assets now than ever. What I think we can expect, and in some instances are already seeing, is a term we are calling the 10x environment.  

Think games with 10x the characters, levels, accessories, or rendered worlds comprised of textures and materials with 10x the sophistication. Generative AI has the potential to spur the growth of these assets across every industry. This is going to be a phenomenal shift, and it’s going to add pressure and demand to the computing capabilities and storage needs of a team’s development pipeline. With so many assets, it will become even more important for teams to rely on software like digital asset management.

Like any great tool, generative AI needs to be deftly wielded for it to be effective. I believe the new skillsets for artists and designers are going to have some sort of prompt engineering aspect to them. And with AI, there are of course lots of downstream effects to be mindful of, such as copyright management and tracking. But overall, we see AI as a production enabler, which is central to our values as a software provider.  

We believe gen AI used ethically and resourcefully will free up creatives to do more of what they love. I think creators are going to take games, films, and other projects to exciting, unimagined places.   

Gaining a Competitive Advantage 

Generative AI is not a fad — it’s already our new reality. I have been working on how we, at Perforce Software, can best navigate and take advantage of this quickly developing landscape. We have an AI & Machine Learning team that has already manifested our investments into products like Helix DAM. And you can imagine how we think it is going to increase teams' needs for version control and file management using secure systems like Helix Core. 

As a CTO, I feel that the window of opportunity for gaining a competitive advantage with AI is now. I believe the teams and organizations that develop ways of efficiency and differentiation in today’s new 10x environment are going to emerge above the rest. For that reason alone, I would advise not only my peers, but everyone involved in software development, to look at ways they can adopt the technology now.   

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