FA CHAI Gaming: “Players today expect more than a spin and a payout — they want a sense of progression”

Karen Ku, Brand Marketing Manager at FA CHAI Gaming, discusses how AI reshapes game development, market personalisation, and modern player expectations.

Exclusive interview.- Artificial intelligence is reshaping workflows across the igaming industry, but for FA CHAI Gaming, its role stops well short of creative decision-making. Karen Ku, Brand Marketing Manager at FA CHAI Gaming, discussed with Focus Gaming News how the company is using AI internally, what today’s slot players expect, and how localisation has become central to its expansion strategy, particularly in Brazil.

AI as a tool, not a decision-maker

Ku said AI’s contribution inside FA CHAI Gaming has been about speed rather than judgement. On the art side, AI has helped the team explore a theme or visual direction early on, or generate quick drafts once a style is set, giving artists more references to react to before committing to a direction. Product and math teams use AI in a similar way, running simulations for a new game’s payout model and reading player behaviour across markets faster than manual analysis previously allowed, including where players tend to drop off and what keeps a session going.

“But the actual design work — what the feature is, how it feels, what it looks like — still comes from our game director, math designers, and artists, and that’s something we take a lot of pride in,” Ku said. “AI changed how fast we get to that starting point. It didn’t change who’s sitting in the room making the call,” she said

Building progression into every spin

Player expectations have shifted beyond a single spin and payout, according to Ku, towards a broader sense of progression. She pointed to FA CHAI Gaming’s Player Achievement System, where achievements earned in one game unlock rewards in others, as a way of keeping players engaged across the company’s full portfolio rather than a single title.

Ku said variety and momentum now matter more than they once did, with features that build round after round rather than resetting on every spin. She cited titles such as KONG ISLAND and GOLDEN IDOL, both built around escalating multipliers and feature moments, as examples. “What we’re seeing is that players respond to that sense of building toward something specific each session, rather than every spin feeling the same,” she said.

Localisation from day one: the Brazil case

The biggest shift in game development over the past few years has been localisation, Ku said, which has moved from surface-level adaptation to shaping a game around a market from the outset.

Brazil is a clear example, according to Ku. Players there show a strong preference for 3×3 grid formats and animal-themed titles, and tend to favour lower volatility and smaller bet sizes over high-risk, high-reward play. She said that preference is part of why KONG ISLAND was built specifically for the Brazilian market, matching the format and theme players already gravitate towards while tuning volatility and betting structure to local habits, rather than adapting an existing title after the fact.

Ku said that insight has always come from two sources: feedback from local partners and how FA CHAI Gaming’s own games perform in a given market. What has changed, she said, is that AI now helps the company process and break down input from both sources far faster than manual analysis allowed.

What’s next: blending formats and personalisation

Looking ahead, Ku identified two shifts she said are already starting to define the next generation of games. The first is the blurring of lines between slots, fishing and table games. “We’re mixing them — adventure-style progression inside a slot, a fishing game structured like a tournament, an achievement layer running through a table game,” she said, adding that this kind of blending is expected to keep spreading as format boundaries dissolve.

The second, which Ku said matters even more, is personalisation. Instead of a single static game for every player, FA CHAI Gaming is building systems that adapt to how someone actually plays, with pacing or difficulty shifting based on individual patterns instead of every session looking the same. “It’s less about a single flashy feature and more about a game that responds to the person playing it,” she said.