Nvidia just announced an app that every PC gamer should install

Last year, Nvidia revealed Project G-Assist. At the time, it was just a technical demo of an AI assistant that could guide you in the right direction in games, but Nvidia is turning it into an actual product. Project G-Assist is coming to the Nvidia app in beta starting in February for all RTX graphics cards, but it looks a bit different from that original tech demo.

Now, Project G-Assist is less of a game-specific helper and more of an AI assistant for Nvidia graphics cards. It’s basically a chatbot, not dissimilar from ChatGPT, but it has access to all of the knobs and switches that control your GPU. With it, you can ask G-Assist to optimize your performance in a particular game, and it’ll automatically set your GPU parameters and game settings accordingly. Or you can ask it to graph your frame rate and latency, and then ask it to optimize your performance for a specific frame rate target. Those are just a couple of examples, too.

Nvidia says G-Assist has access to everything normally within the Nvidia Overlay, so you can start and stop recordings, automatically overclock or undervolt your GPU, update your drivers, and much more. You don’t need to type in all of your queries, either. G-Assist works with text or speech, according to Nvidia, and it’ll be available for all RTX graphics cards. In addition, Nvidia says G-Assist works 100% on-device; it doesn’t connect to the internet.

We saw a glimpse of this capability last year, and although G-Assist sounds useful enough to warrant a recommendation, it’s not exactly a slam dunk for every PC gamer based on its core functionality. Where G-Assist gets really special is through integrations. Nvidia has opened up an API that allows custom plugins for G-Assist, transforming it from an Nvidia-focused assistant into something that can manage your whole battle station.

To start, Nvidia has partnerships with Corsair and Logitech, which will have plugins for G-Assist. With them, Nvidia says you can diagnose issues with your system, customize peripheral lighting, and manage fan noise through an API that accesses your peripheral apps.

You don’t have to wait for official partnerships, either. Nvidia says it will offer the plugin framework on GitHub, as well as a test interface to see how the plugins work before sharing them online. That’s huge. Nvidia describes G-Assist as somewhat of a community-driven ecosystem, so while there will likely be plenty of updates to the core assistant throughout its beta period, I suspect most of the growth will come from these community plugins.

Nvidia says you’ll see G-Assist show up elsewhere, too, or at least the backbone behind it. Versions of the AI assistant will show up in MSI Center, MSI Afterburner, Streamlabs OBS, and the Omen Gaming Hub.