AI and Creative Workflow

In 2015, I came across Tim Urban’s fascinating post about AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) and ASI (Artificial Superintelligence). It was an interesting read, but it was not an “aha” moment for me at the time. My exposure to AI (or machine learning back then) was mostly through its use in engineering systems such as fraud detection, recommendation engines, and pattern recognition tools in our payment infrastructure. It felt more like solving backend challenges than experiencing anything magical.

That changed ten years later.

Few months ago, I fed the entire documentation of our strategy game into ChatGPT, explaining the mechanics, economy, characters, and battle logic. I expected a basic summary, but the AI understood it deeply, asked relevant questions, explored edge cases, and even suggested improvements. It felt like I was brainstorming with an actual game designer. That was the moment it all clicked. That was the moment it all clicked. It felt crazy! It reminded me of my first time using Lyft, a ride-sharing app in Cincinnati, and showed a glimpse of how technology can fundamentally reshape the future.

Fast forward to today, the same AI can fetch data from the internet, simulate decision-making, reason, and brainstorm together. The pace of innovation is not linear. It is exponential. The momentum will only accelerate from here.

Here is how we are using AI across our creative workflow:

• Generate art and animations using Midjourney
• Produce high-quality voiceovers & sounds through ElevenLabs
• Code suggestions and debugging from Claude and Cursor
• Design and storytelling using ChatGPT and Claude
• Many more with NotebookLM, Flow!

Today, AI contributes approximately 10-15% of our codebase, and I fully expect it to exceed 50% by next year. These tools are already handling many of the tasks that used to take up our developers’, editors’, and artists’ time. The models keep getting better, and I can see them becoming even more powerful very soon. I can already envision an AI project manager that ties everything together, managing story, code, visuals, and audio, and coordinating the production process.

This journey with AI is just beginning. I would love to hear how others in the Kathmandu community are using AI in their own projects. I would be excited to meet, share, and learn from one another. These are my stories, and I look forward to hearing yours.