nunu.ai has raised $2 million towards AI playtesters and QA with bot detection on the way

• nunu.ai has raised $2 million in a pre-seed round
• The company is creating AI tech for QA and playtesting games

AI agent maker nunu.ai has raised $2 million in a pre-seed round with participation from a16z Games Speedrun, Boost VC, Y Combinator and angel investors.

The funding will support nunu.ai’s goal of creating AI playtesters and QA tech with vision-based "agents", who can see and interact with games in the same way as humans.

During play, these agents can explain the reasons behind their decisions and actions in-game, enhancing developers’ insights into how players may engage.

AI gets to play

nunu.ai specialises in quality assurance for open-world games, with its debut trailer showcasing AI gameplay in Roblox, Genshin Impact and Assassin’s Creed, among other titles. Its development tool is designed for "dynamic interaction and observation" that extends to player simulation.

"We are excited to announce our $2 million pre-seed round with a16z Games Speedrun, Boost VC, Y Combinator, and amazing angel investors!" nunu.ai co-founder Jan Schnyder posted on LinkedIn.

"Game QA in particular represents the pinnacle of virtual agentic behavior while being one of the most broken parts of the gaming industry. Our mission is to change this. At nunu.ai, we're revolutionising Game QA to provide broader testing coverage and faster iteration cycles for game studios.

"Our vision is to develop generally capable agents that can navigate and act in any given virtual 3D environment, starting with applications in gaming and moving towards general 3D simulations and robotics. This is just the beginning!"

AI agents

Down the line, nunu.ai also wants to use its AI to detect the misuse of bots and help studios eliminate bad actors in their online games - which could prove popular in competitive games with real money up for grabs.

Schnyder explained: "We plan to work with studios on all things AI agents; QA is just the beginning. By developing these sophisticated agents, we also gain the insight needed to detect their misuse effectively and can assist studios in this effort!"

nunu.ai has also live-streamed its AI playing Pokémon Emerald to demonstrate its capabilities, though Nintendo itself doesn’t plan to use AI technology - preferring to trust its devs’ own "decades of know-how".