Mikhail Jacob

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

SKILLS

ABOUT MIKHAIL JACOB

I am an applied researcher and engineer who is passionate about using human-centered artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to solve challenging real-world problems. I am thrilled to be applying these techniques in the game industry as a senior ML engineer at The Coalition Studio (Microsoft Xbox). I work closely with our developers to supercharge their workflows using machine learning tools and solutions. As a part of the Xbox Games Technology Group, I also get to learn from, interface with, and share our work across the Xbox ecosystem.Prior to my current role at The Coalition, I was the head of ML at Resolution Games. I\'m super proud of the zero to one work we did there researching, developing, and shipping Racket Club (and later Home Sports), the world\'s first VR game with competitive player-like ML bots, trained using deep reinforcement + imitation learning, and optimized for real-time on-device inference.As a post-doctoral researcher with Microsoft Research prior to that, I studied the technological interventions required to bridge the gap between reinforcement/imitation learning as an upcoming research technology with great potential and the challenges of game designers & developers who actually want to create with it in the real-world.My academic background combines technical AI/ML research with deep user-focused questions on human-AI systems for collaboration, augmenting human creativity, and computational creativity. During my MS and PhD, my research looked at how to build human-AI improvisation/collaboration systems end to end (e.g. in dance and improv theatre) as well as their effect on user experience and creativity. More generally, I bring a laser focus on user needs to drive a desired novel end experience while innovating on the AI technologies to make that experience possible.For more information, visit my personal website (https://mikhailjacob.dev/).