EA says it's going to use AI to fix The Sims 4's really annoying user content gallery

Everyone knows that The Sims 4 gallery, the in-game hub where players can share and download their creations, is terrible. It's difficult to browse, search results rarely return what you want, and the hashtag system is finicky at best. Even EA knows, because it has a plan to fix the gallery with AI-powered image searching.

During an Electronic Arts investor presentation this week, in which it also clarified that there is no Sims 5, actually, EA entertainment & technology president Laura Miele expanded on the features that are being envisioned for the future "Sims Hub."

Miele explains the "AI application that uses a photo-based search feature:" Think of it like Google's reverse image search function. Instead of searching for a "red house with white trim," Miele explains, a player could just upload a photo. "This feature is actually working today with a plan to release soon," she says, and adds that the video being shown (above) was actually using search results from the tool.

As Miele points out, there's a lot of content in the current Sims 4 gallery and an image search helps get around things like language barriers or misspellings. During the same presentation, Miele explained that EA is planning for multiple Sims games to all share a single gallery. With even more content getting shoved into it, making the thing easier to use will be key. As far as uses of AI image tools go, this actually seems like a great one. 

What I'm a little more wary of is how Miele describes using the same tool for creating a Sim. "This same AI-powered image search can unlock creation capability. Picture uploading an image of a model wearing a certain outfit—clothes, shoes, jewelry, all of it. Using images to create content will dial up the power of our players."

It's unclear whether Miele is describing a tool which could take an image and identify similar clothes that exist within The Sims 4's content and build a Sim wearing that outfit, or if the tool is envisioned as generating new content in game, without an artist's involvement.

If it's the latter, that sounds a lot like what we've recently seen Krafton toying with in the demos for its upcoming Sims competitor Inzoi. It has an AI tool that can generate in-game patterns from a text prompt or turn a photo of a real-world object into an in-game one.

This was just part of a surprising amount of Sims series information that EA shared this week. Aside from the explanation about Project Rene's place in the "The Sims Universe," EA also shared that it will be doing some closed beta tests of Project Rene multiplayer.