Hero Esports, backed by Tencent Holdings and Saudi Arabia’s Savvy Games Group, is pilot-testing AI models to enhance its operations, according to CEO Danny Tang.

The company is experimenting with tools like a version of DeepSeek to improve business processes.

One key use is analyzing patents and historical contracts to identify areas needing more attention.

The company has also developed an AI toolkit to streamline production workflows. This includes automating camera operations and generating highlight reels.

With around 1,200 staff, Hero Esports aims to use AI to let its team focus more on creative tasks.

🔗 Source: South China Morning Post

🧠 Food for thought

1️⃣ AI adoption becoming standard competitive practice in esports operations

Hero Esports’ AI implementation aligns with an established industry trend where operational AI has evolved from experimental to essential in competitive esports.

Major teams are already seeing significant competitive advantages through AI integration, with Team Liquid processing over 550 billion data points to inform tactical decisions 1.

This shift follows a pattern where esports organizations first adopted AI for basic analytics but are now implementing it across entire operational workflows, such as tournament organization and content production.

Game.tv demonstrated the business viability of this approach in 2019, securing $25 million in Series A funding specifically for AI-powered esports tournament platforms 2.

The production automation Hero Esports is implementing reflects industry best practices, with AI-powered tools now commonly used for camera work, highlight creation, and real-time content generation across the sector 34.

This operational AI implementation directly addresses a key industry challenge, the need to process massive amounts of data efficiently. Teams like T1 and Cloud9 use AI for opponent research and real-time analytics during practice sessions 5.

2️⃣ Balancing AI automation with human creativity remains the central challenge

Hero Esports’ stated goal of using AI to “free up time for creative work” reflects the gaming industry’s central AI implementation challenge, finding the right human-machine balance.