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Overview
Smart Zoi is an experimental AI feature that gives Zois independent decision-making. Instead of waiting for player direction or following simple scripts, a Smart Zoi thinks about what to do next based on its personality traits, recent experiences, relationships, and current needs. Developed in partnership with NVIDIA using their ACE (Avatar Cloud Engine) technology, inZOI was the first game to ship with AI-powered NPCs using NVIDIA ACE, what NVIDIA calls "Co-Playable Character" AI tech.
Technical foundation
Smart Zoi runs a Mistral NeMo Minitron small language model (SLM) with 0.5 billion parameters entirely on-device. No cloud connection is required for the AI processing itself. NVIDIA's distillation methods compress a larger model's knowledge into this compact footprint, producing high-quality outputs at low latency. The model uses approximately 1 GB of VRAM.
The SLM processes information about the Zoi's current state, personality, emotions, skills, desired life, memories, and social context, then generates decisions about what the Zoi should do next. Every Zoi is composed of over 400 mental elements that feed into this process. The Zoi effectively "asks questions" of the AI model internally, and the model's responses guide behavior and daily scheduling.
Behavioral examples
In practice, Smart Zoi produces varied and sometimes surprising autonomous behavior:
A Zoi with high creativity and a love of music might decide to practice instruments every morning, then spend the afternoon visiting the Narim Art Gallery in Dowon.
A social Zoi with many friends might prioritize phone calls and drop-in visits, sometimes canceling plans to respond to a friend in a bad mood.
A Zoi who had a bad day at work might schedule extra leisure time the following evening, or pick a fight with a housemate if their karma is low.
After a relationship ends, a Zoi might spend more time alone, decline social invitations, and develop a pattern of late-night reading.
Inner thoughts
Smart Zoi displays a Zoi's "inner thoughts" as text bubbles above their head. These show what the AI model is processing: what the Zoi is considering, why it made a choice, and what it plans to do next. For example, a Smart Zoi might think "I'm tired but I really want to finish this painting" before staying up late, or "I haven't talked to my neighbor in a while" before walking over to start a conversation. The inner thoughts make the AI's reasoning transparent rather than opaque.
Schedule management
Smart Zois create and adjust their own daily schedules. Based on personality, needs, and recent events, they decide when to wake up, eat, work, socialize, pursue hobbies, and sleep. The schedule adapts over time as circumstances change.
Players are not locked out of control when Smart Zoi is active. You can still direct Zois manually. Smart Zoi fills in the gaps when you are not giving instructions, keeping idle Zois active rather than standing around waiting for input.
Personality customization
Players can customize a Smart Zoi's personality by writing free-form text prompts to modify their actions and life goals. This lets you steer the AI's behavior without micromanaging individual actions. You set the broad direction, and the SLM handles the details.
Enabling Smart Zoi
Smart Zoi is disabled by default. To enable it:
Open the game menu.
Go to Options > Gameplay.
Toggle Enable Smart Zoi on.
An active internet connection is required even though the model runs locally. Possibly for authentication, model updates, or telemetry.
System requirements
Minimum: NVIDIA RTX 3060 or RTX 4060 with 8 GB VRAM, 12 GB system RAM.
Recommended: NVIDIA RTX 5070 or RTX 4070 SUPER with 12 GB VRAM, 16 GB system RAM.
AMD graphics cards are not supported. When Smart Zoi is enabled, graphics settings automatically drop by one quality level to compensate for the GPU load. The feature currently supports English only. See System Requirements for full tier details.
Updates and improvements
The v0.6.0 update (February 12, 2026) refined Smart Zoi's behavioral patterns, continuing iterative improvements since launch. The 2026 Roadmap includes AI NPC improvements as part of the "Beyond" development track, with plans for more sophisticated autonomous personality-driven behavior and realistic daily routines for non-player Zois.
Known issues
Item | Description |
|---|---|
Late-night schedule failure | If a Zoi stays up too late, schedule creation can fail, leaving the Zoi stuck without a plan. |
High-speed limitations | At 5x speed or higher, the journal and schedule editing interfaces become unresponsive. |
Thought bubble timing | Inner thought bubbles can vanish too quickly to read, especially when the Zoi is moving between activities. |
Performance lag after 11 PM | When multiple household Zois become sleepy at the same time, the system can lag as the model processes simultaneous schedule decisions. |
Connection to other AI features
Smart Zoi is one of several AI-powered features in inZOI, alongside the 3D Printer (image-to-3D), Facial Capture (expression mapping), Photo Mode's AI Emote (pose generation), and the AI Texture system in Build Mode. Smart Zoi is the most ambitious of these because it affects moment-to-moment gameplay rather than being a creation tool.