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Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks says the company is using artificial intelligence models based on its own characters, including Peppa Pig and Optimus Prime, to help design new products.
Cocks shared the details during an appearance on the Decoder podcast with The Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel, where he discussed how AI tools are now being integrated into Hasbro’s creative process.
The executive explained that internal teams have trained custom AI models using Hasbro’s intellectual property, allowing designers to generate concepts and visualizations much faster than before.
Hasbro CEO says AI versions of Peppa Pig and Optimus Prime help design products
According to Cocks, the company’s design teams now have access to “a suite of the latest tools from basically every major company,” alongside models trained specifically on Hasbro characters and brands.
He said these tools allow teams to quickly generate detailed product renderings and concept ideas during early stages of development.
“And so from doing that, we can have pretty sophisticated renderings pretty fast of products and ideas,” Cocks explained.
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Cocks added that when more development time is available, designers can go further by programming the personalities of specific characters into the system so they can act as collaborators during the design process.
“When we have a little bit more time, we can even program in a character, and the character from the IP can actually be a co-designer with us and help us with ideas and help us with like, ‘That’s authentic, that’s not authentic,’” he noted.
“Yeah. So we have Peppa Pig co-design Peppa Pig products with us. Optimus Prime co-designs Optimus Prime Transformers products with us.”
The company has also used these character models in other creative ways inside its offices. Cocks explained that AI versions of Optimus Prime and Megatron are used as interactive DJs in the main hall of Hasbro’s headquarters.
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“Optimus Prime and Megatron are two of the DJs that we have in the main hall of our office building, where people can ask them to play songs,” the CEO revealed. “Optimus is always very serious and tells you the soulful reason about the song, and Megatron basically makes fun of you for not picking thrash rock.”
Despite the growing role of AI in the process, Cocks emphasized that humans still drive the final creative decisions behind Hasbro products.
“At the end of the day, it’s a bit of garbage in, garbage out; it’s really a human that’s kind of making the decisions, and a human that’s inspiring the good ideas, and a human that’s selecting them and then taking them to the next level,” he said.
“But man, the amount of content we can create, and the speed at which we can create it, just transforms how good we are at being able to bring an idea to life and pitch things.”
