WEBVTT - Roblox CEO Dave Baszucki Talks AI Tech in Gaming

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<v Speaker 1>Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.

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<v Speaker 2>Roadblocks just held its developers conference and it really reinforced

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<v Speaker 2>its growth prospects. To like to say that Roadblocks is

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<v Speaker 2>CEO David Zuoki is with us here in San Francisco.

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<v Speaker 2>Roadblocks Moments. Now, I don't know necessarily you put too

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<v Speaker 2>much stock into the headline of what an analyst says,

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<v Speaker 2>but there are an lists out there saying that this

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<v Speaker 2>is potentially transformational for engagement. So let's start with Roadblocks Moments.

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<v Speaker 2>What is it and why so important?

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah?

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<v Speaker 4>So, thank you coming off a great developer conference and

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<v Speaker 4>coming off, you know, reiterating our audacious goal of getting

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<v Speaker 4>ten percent of all gaming running on Roadblocks. Look, we're

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<v Speaker 4>looking for ways that developers can share and people can

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<v Speaker 4>find their amazing experiences. A lot of people go on

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<v Speaker 4>to social media. Roadblocks Moments is right inside Roadblocks. It

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<v Speaker 4>allows users to capture a great moment, like at the

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<v Speaker 4>bottom of a roller coaster, or when you have something

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<v Speaker 4>really amazing happen, and turn that into a short little

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<v Speaker 4>video that other people can watch. What's really exciting about

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<v Speaker 4>Roadblox Moments. If you really like what you're seeing, you

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<v Speaker 4>can click on it and jump directly into a Roadblox game.

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<v Speaker 4>So it's one hundred percent Roadblocks. It's fun to watch

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<v Speaker 4>and you find great new stuff.

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<v Speaker 2>Dave, we've talked about this idea in the past. Is

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<v Speaker 2>it a competition for ribles with the likes of TikTok

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<v Speaker 2>or is it something different? You know, gamers actually people

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<v Speaker 2>playing the games go to Twitch and YouTube. This goes

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<v Speaker 2>back to the creator. It's slightly different.

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<v Speaker 4>There's a really interesting angle to hear and that anyone

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<v Speaker 4>on Roadblocks can make a Roadblox moment ultimately, and also

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<v Speaker 4>a lot of the creators, whether we're playing miniature golf

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<v Speaker 4>or something else, are going to have the capability to

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<v Speaker 4>let you automatically take a clip of your favorite thing,

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<v Speaker 4>like a hole in one. So we're hoping individual users

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<v Speaker 4>on Roadblocks can make amazing moments, other people can watch

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<v Speaker 4>them and then find them miniature.

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<v Speaker 1>Golf game and develop as conference is exactly about the

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<v Speaker 1>creator's Dave, and you offer them these moments, you offer

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<v Speaker 1>them new AI improvements, new tools, ultimately ways to thrive

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<v Speaker 1>the take rate for the content creators at the moment, Dave,

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<v Speaker 1>talk us through why you're recompensing them even more.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah, thank you.

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<v Speaker 4>You know, long term, we've shared we want to grow

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<v Speaker 4>bookings faster than our employee costs or our cogs or infracosts,

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<v Speaker 4>and we want to take that remaining cash and as

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<v Speaker 4>much as possible distribute it transparently directly to the creators.

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<v Speaker 3>So arguably the top applause at.

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<v Speaker 4>Our developer conference was, for the first time in six years,

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<v Speaker 4>we increased the dev x rate, or the percent that

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<v Speaker 4>our creators take home today for every robucks they're they're

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<v Speaker 4>earning eight point five percent more than they used to.

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<v Speaker 4>And as you correctly know, we introduce us a pile

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<v Speaker 4>of new AI capability that we can talk about as well.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, what goes on behind that AI capability? How much

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<v Speaker 1>are you having to think through, get the right talent

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<v Speaker 1>in place? And what is it that it allows roadblocks

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<v Speaker 1>to really harness?

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah, rolling the clock back.

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<v Speaker 4>We became an AI shop over four years ago, and

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<v Speaker 4>over the last four years have developed over four hundred

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<v Speaker 4>AI models, So text translation, safety, voice filtering, text filtering,

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<v Speaker 4>all of that. What's really exciting is we have a

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<v Speaker 4>vision not just of using AI for safety, civility or

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<v Speaker 4>for creating games, but AI should be live inside of

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<v Speaker 4>every experience and so we were demoing live three D

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<v Speaker 4>experiences where people were creating vehicles on the fly by

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<v Speaker 4>talking about them, where in the past it was very

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<v Speaker 4>hard for many.

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<v Speaker 3>Of us to create vehicles. So we would say for.

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<v Speaker 4>Any form of creativity, fashion vehicles, we're going to have

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<v Speaker 4>more people creating in roadblocks experiences.

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<v Speaker 3>Dave.

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<v Speaker 2>When you bring all these people together in San Jose,

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<v Speaker 2>what were the pieces of feedback you got from the

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<v Speaker 2>developer community, good or bad? That either surprise you and

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<v Speaker 2>you think I got to go in act on that.

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<v Speaker 4>Now with the team, when people think about building a

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<v Speaker 4>high tech company and with us this really audacious goal.

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<v Speaker 4>Could we have ten percent of all the gaming running

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<v Speaker 4>on roadblocks, RPGs, auto races, sports, all of that. Interestingly enough,

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<v Speaker 4>the creators really want raw scale.

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<v Speaker 3>Raw performance, raw realism.

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<v Speaker 4>They're looking as we design this gaming platform in the cloud,

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<v Speaker 4>can it be bigger?

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<v Speaker 3>Can it be better? So, in addition to the.

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<v Speaker 4>Devx rate and the economics, some of the biggest applause

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<v Speaker 4>was really around hardcore technical features that support ultimately photorealism

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<v Speaker 4>and scale.

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<v Speaker 2>Part of that is that use engagement. The data on

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<v Speaker 2>engagement for August is looking strong and that might carry

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<v Speaker 2>through for the rest of the year. We've talked about

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<v Speaker 2>this before and it's worth repeating. You have had Friday

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<v Speaker 2>nights and Saturday nights where the servers are melting. How

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<v Speaker 2>are you dealing with that?

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<v Speaker 4>I know, yeah, we like the servers to melt. That's

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<v Speaker 4>obviously a good thing, not a bad thing. Last year,

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<v Speaker 4>our peak concurrency around this time was eleven million people

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<v Speaker 4>playing Roadblocks at the same time. Two weeks ago, there

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<v Speaker 4>were over forty five million people playing Roadblocks at the

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<v Speaker 4>same time, and this was.

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<v Speaker 3>A coordinated event. We like it.

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<v Speaker 4>A lot of the creators of the top games all

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<v Speaker 4>had events at the same time to try to melt

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<v Speaker 4>our servers. What's beautiful about our architecture is, in addition

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<v Speaker 4>to our primary focus, like we build our own data centers,

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<v Speaker 4>we have great cloud partners, and our cloud partners now

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<v Speaker 4>can come online for two or three hours on a

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<v Speaker 4>Saturday and we can burst into this.

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<v Speaker 3>Forty five million concurrency. So it's a.

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<v Speaker 4>Really great problem. Tell all these creators try to stress

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<v Speaker 4>our system.

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<v Speaker 1>Briefly, A tougher problem has been safety, Dave, and you've

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<v Speaker 1>been leaning into that with AIS. You just articulated still

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<v Speaker 1>about what is it forty percent of your users are

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<v Speaker 1>run to thirteens. You've been making changes, particularly about estimates

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<v Speaker 1>of user ages and check ins, Dave, how is that

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<v Speaker 1>being received by developers and my countries at the Middle East?

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<v Speaker 1>In particular of light.

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<v Speaker 4>I'd highlight we have a history of leaning in before

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<v Speaker 4>law or legislation, for example California Age Appropriate Design Code.

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<v Speaker 4>We leaned in on that because we were already doing it.

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<v Speaker 4>Last week we announced somewhat bold and audacious vision to

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<v Speaker 4>lead the industry in using facial age estimation, id estimation

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<v Speaker 4>and other tools to know the age of everyone approximately

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<v Speaker 4>on our platform, who's using communication, and also to use

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<v Speaker 4>that to maybe adjust a bit who communicates with who.

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<v Speaker 4>The key i'd like to highlight is this sits on

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<v Speaker 4>top of everything else we do, which is filtering all texts,

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<v Speaker 4>filtering all voice, and also not allowing image sharing or

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<v Speaker 4>video sharing on the platform. We think it's going to

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<v Speaker 4>set a standard that other social media, messaging and comms

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<v Speaker 4>products will look into.

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<v Speaker 1>Following David ZOOKI love having you on. Thanks for talking

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<v Speaker 1>us through it. Found a CEO of Rocks