Inworld AI: What It Is, Pricing, Games and Rivals

What is Inworld AI?

Inworld AI is a company that sells AI tools to developers. It is not a game. Today its site says that it “builds models and inference for consumer applications”. It sells voice models (text to speech, speech to text, speech to speech) and access to open language models.

Inworld started with games. TechCrunch, in August 2023, called it “a generative AI platform for creating NPCs”. The company launched in 2021. Its founders came from API.AI, a company that Google bought in 2016. TechCrunch named Kylan Gibbs, Ilya Gelfenbeyn and Michael Ermolenko as co-founders.

So when people search for Inworld AI, they find two things. One is the old NPC platform for game studios. The other is the voice and model company of today. This guide covers both, and it separates what Inworld says from what other sources say.

This is the LifeSim blog. LifeSim is our game: a free life game where the people of a real city are AI characters. We do not sell a platform to developers, so LifeSim is not an Inworld rival. We say where it fits at the end.

What does Inworld AI do now?

The Inworld home page lists these products today, in November 2026:

Realtime TTS-2 and TTS-2 Flash: text to speech, with voice cloning and voice design.
Realtime STT-1: speech to text in 30 languages.
Speech to speech: one connection that listens, thinks and speaks.
Inference: open language models on Inworld’s own servers, through an API.
Compute: dedicated servers with reserved capacity.

The home page names companions, learning, health and fitness, social apps, personal agents and entertainment as uses. It does not mention games or NPCs. Its customer examples are apps: Status by Wishroll, Talkpal, Latitude and Bible Chat.

Games did not go away at once. In October 2025, Inworld wrote that its partners moved “from demos to live titles”, and that it then built Inworld Runtime. The Inworld news page also lists an “Unreal AI Runtime” for game developers, from October 2025. The newer posts on that page are mostly about voice models, cost and inference.

Is Inworld AI free?

You can start for free, but Inworld charges for use. The pricing page has an On-Demand plan with no base fee. You pay only for what you use, and the plan includes some free use for tests.

Above that, there are monthly plans: Creator, Builder, Developer and Growth. Each plan gives you credits equal to its monthly fee. Higher plans get lower rates and higher limits. The Enterprise plan has custom prices, and you arrange it with the sales team.

The pricing page bills each product by a different unit:

Text to speech: by the character of text.
Speech to text: by the time of audio.
Language models: by the token.

Prices change, so we left them out. Check the Inworld pricing page before you build on it.

What games use Inworld AI?

Few released games name Inworld. We found two with a source: Death by AI and Cygnus Enterprises. Most of the famous Inworld games are demos and prototypes that players cannot buy.

Death by AI (released)

Death by AI is a party game where an AI game master judges your plan to survive. Inworld’s customer story says that the studio, Playroom, part of Little Umbrella, used Inworld models and Inworld voices. The same story says the game had 20 million players in three months, and that it reached profitability with Inworld. These are Inworld’s claims. Read our guide to Death by AI for the game itself.

Cygnus Enterprises (released in Early Access)

Cygnus Enterprises is an action RPG from Team Miaozi, a NetEase Games studio in Shanghai. A press release from September 2023 named Inworld AI as the technology partner. It said players can chat with AI NPCs that “respond in real-time”. The game was in Early Access on Steam at that time.

Inworld Origins (a demo, now gone)

Inworld made its own short detective game, Inworld Origins. It came to Steam on July 27, 2023. You asked witnesses questions with your microphone. The Steam page now says that it is no longer available.

Ubisoft NEO NPCs and Covert Protocol (prototypes)

In March 2024, Ubisoft showed NEO NPCs, two characters called Bloom and Iron. NVIDIA says that they used Inworld technology, and NVIDIA Audio2Face for the faces. Engadget called them “a proof of concept”. Ubisoft gave no release date.

Covert Protocol was a tech demo by Inworld and NVIDIA from the same month. You play a private detective who talks to people in the scene. NVIDIA called it a tech demo, and Inworld planned to release its source code for developers. It was not sold as a game.

Xbox and mods

On November 6, 2023, Xbox announced a multi-year partnership with Inworld. The plan was tools for developers: an AI design copilot and an AI character runtime engine. The post gave no release date. TechCrunch also reported fan mods with Inworld characters for Skyrim, Stardew Valley and Grand Theft Auto V.

Can players use Inworld AI?

Not directly. Inworld is a tool for developers. Its documentation is for people who write code, and it talks about API keys, a command line tool and production setup. We found no Inworld app for players on its site.

As a player, you meet Inworld only inside a game or an app that a developer built with it. Death by AI is one example. You do not sign up with Inworld to play it.

If you want to talk to AI characters today, look at games, not platforms. We list them in games where you can talk to AI and in AI games. For the word itself, read what NPC means.

Inworld AI vs NVIDIA ACE vs Convai: what is the difference?

All three sell to developers, not to players. Inworld now sells voice models and model access for many kinds of apps. NVIDIA ACE is a set of models and plugins for game characters. Convai sells a platform to make 3D AI characters.

They are not always rivals. NVIDIA lists Inworld and Convai as companies that use ACE. Covert Protocol used ACE and Inworld together.

Question	Inworld AI	NVIDIA ACE	Convai
What it says it is	Models and inference for consumer apps	AI technologies for middleware and game developers	Conversational AI characters
Main parts	Text to speech, speech to text, speech to speech, language models	Speech, language and face animation models, Unreal Engine 5 plugins	No-code character tools, Unity and Unreal Engine plugins, APIs
Where it runs	Inworld’s servers, through an API	Mostly on the player’s device	Inside Unity, Unreal Engine and other engines
Games on its official page	None on the home page	PUBG: Battlegrounds, inZOI, Total War: Pharaoh, MIR5, Dead Meat	None named
How you pay	Pay for use, or a monthly plan with credits	No prices on the page. Many parts have open licenses.	Free start. See the pricing page.

One example of ACE in a released game is Smart Zoi, in inZOI. Read our guide to Smart Zoi.

What do players think of AI NPCs?

Players are split. Some like free talk with characters. Others call it a gimmick, or worry about the writers who lose work.

When Ubisoft showed its NEO NPCs in March 2024, many players answered with anger on X. EarlyGame quoted two X posts. One said, “So your games will be even more soulless? I thought that’s impossible.” The other said, “Nobody wants this except obsessive tech bros.”

The Steam forums of Where Winds Meet show both sides. That game has AI chatbot NPCs. We did not find which vendor it uses, so these posts are about AI NPCs in general, not about Inworld.

One player wrote: “I actually really like using the ai chatbot to talk to npcs.”
Another player wrote: “I think it’s fine, but I do think it could be made better by linking it into the game.”
In a second thread, a player called the feature “a gimmick” and “completely unnecessary for the game.”
Another player answered: “Don’t talk with the AI NPCs if they bother you.”

The pattern is clear. Players like AI characters when the talk changes the game. They do not like a chatbot that is added on top of a game and changes nothing. For games where the AI changes how the world acts, read games with the best AI. For an experiment where AI characters live in a small town, read our guide to AI Town.

Should you use Inworld AI, or play a game with AI characters?

It depends on whether you make games or play them.

Use Inworld if you are a developer and you need fast voices or model access for an app. Compare its pricing page with the other vendors first.
Look at NVIDIA ACE if you build in Unreal Engine 5 and want the models to run on the player’s PC.
Look at Convai if you want no-code tools to put a 3D character into Unity or Unreal Engine.
Play a game if you only want to talk to AI characters. You do not need any of these platforms.

LifeSim is our game, and it is for players, not for developers. It does not sell an NPC platform. In LifeSim you live one life in a real city that you pick on a 3D map of Earth. The people there are AI characters with jobs, homes and friends. They answer in their own words and remember you.

LifeSim is free to play, with no ads, no subscription and nothing to buy. It runs in any browser at play.lifesim.com and on iPhone and iPad. A life runs a day at a time, on its own clock. If you want fast action or a large written story, other games do better. We list them in AI life simulator games.

The decision rule: if you write code, compare the platforms. If you want to play, pick a game. If that game is one long life with AI people, try LifeSim for free.

Inworld AI

What is Inworld AI?

What does Inworld AI do now?

Is Inworld AI free?

What games use Inworld AI?

Death by AI (released)

Cygnus Enterprises (released in Early Access)

Inworld Origins (a demo, now gone)

Ubisoft NEO NPCs and Covert Protocol (prototypes)

Xbox and mods

Can players use Inworld AI?

Inworld AI vs NVIDIA ACE vs Convai: what is the difference?

What do players think of AI NPCs?

Should you use Inworld AI, or play a game with AI characters?

More game guides

Sources

Sims 4 database

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