Smart Zoi is one of the experimental features available in brand-new life sim inZOI from the time of its early access launch. Separate from the game’s autonomy system, Smart Zoi can nevertheless be seen as an extension of the sliding scale of autonomous behaviour typically seen in life sims. It aims to allow individual Zois to grow and develop unique personalities and make more believable decisions based on their preferences and experiences.
The Smart Zoi system uses an sLM (Small Language Model) developed by Krafton for use in its games — and while generative AI is an extremely contentious subject in game development right now, sLMs are at least generally regarded as a better ethical and environmental choice than their LLM equivalents. While Krafton haven’t fully disclosed the source of their training data for Smart Zoi, they have confirmed that instances of generative AI use within the game are stored entirely on-device, and that all art assets used for the purpose are owned by Kraton and drawn from their other games.
So, if you’ve decided to give the feature a whirl, read on below to learn more about how to use Smart Zoi.
How to turn on Smart Zoi in inZOI
Smart Zoi can be enabled from inZOI’s gameplay options menu. From here you’ll see the option to toggle the feature on and off entirely, as well as to customise which Zois it applies to at any given time, and the number of actions that can be autonomously added to their activity queues.
It’s worth noting that turning on Smart Zoi further tests the already hefty PC system requirements that inZOI comes with as standard. In particular, you’ll be prompted to drop your graphics settings by one level of fidelity in order to accommodate the Smart Zoi system (this will happen automatically, although you can restore your preferences). Furthermore, if your PC is closer to the “required” specs than the “recommended” ones for the game overall, you may find that you don’t have the option to enable Smart Zoi.
If you’re experiencing performance issues as a result of turning on the Smart Zoi system, you can try reducing the “applied range in city”, “applied range on screen”, and “queue limit” options from the gameplay options menu, which should reduce the strain on your PC.
How to use Smart Zoi and what it does
The aim of the Smart Zoi system is to give more depth to individual Zois by having them develop unique personalities that diverge from the relatively basic off-the-peg traits you can choose in the Character Creator.
Both playable and NPC Zois’ behaviour is affected by Smart Zoi. The most immediately noticeable change is that your Zoi and those around them will start to display Inner Thoughts: a brief text summary that gives an insight into a Zoi’s current state, above and beyond the generic emotional contexts they display when reacting to events.
At the end of an in-game day, your playable Zoi(s) will also give a summary of the day via the Smart Zoi Analysis system, giving you some additional insight into how they changed and why over the past 24 in-game hours.
While Inner Thoughts and Smart Zoi Analysis immediately add something new to the game, you might not notice a huge amount of complexity in these thoughts at first. However, you can customise any Zoi with Smart Zoi by clicking the pencil icon on the UI just above the skill panel. Here you can freely enter a brief behavioural prompt or some trait key words into a text box, which should lead to the Zoi in question developing a more unique set of behaviours over time.
However, it’s worth noting again that this feature is still highly experimental, so actual results can be extremely variable. From our experience and the experiences of other players we’ve read online, Smart Zoi prompts can often seem to have little noticeable effect — especially if you target skill activities rather than relationship behaviours — or result in unwanted and potentially even distressing behaviour if a prompt gets interpreted incorrectly (for example, a Zoi described as “aggressive in their pursuit of success” becoming physically abusive towards their co-workers).
When working as intended, though, Smart Zoi’s effects can be observed in some of the decisions your Zois make autonomously. For example, a Zoi prompted to behave single-mindedly towards their crush will over time become more likely to reject autonomous romantic behaviours from anyone other than the object of their affections. This is honestly more or less the limit of the interpersonal possibilities of Smart Zoi as we’ve seen it so far, although per Krafton, the eventual aim is for the feature to have city-wide implications in creating trends, reputations and rumours, and so on. But since the feature is very clearly flagged as a work-in-progress, expect more developments as the game makes its way through early access.