VERSES® Digital Brain Beats Google’s Top AI At “Gameworld 10k” Atari Challenge

VERSES new AXIOM model is up to 60% better, 97% more efficient and learns 39 times faster than Google® Deepmind’s DreamerV3 in third-party validated benchmark

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, June 02, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- VERSES AI Inc. (CBOE: VERS) (OTCQB: VRSSF) (“VERSES” or the “Company”), a cognitive computing company, today revealed results that it believes mark a significant advancement in artificial intelligence. Their new digital brain architecture, codenamed AXIOM (Active eXpanding Inference with Object-centric Models) and based on Active Inference, has demonstrated superior performance over Google DeepMind’s DreamerV3, a leading model recognized for its generalization capabilities in game environments.

AXIOM outperformed DreamerV3 in the “Gameworld 10K” benchmark—an advanced successor to the Atari 100K Challenge that pits AI agents in a head-to-head decathlon across ten diverse, arcade-style environments to measure how well they can generalize across domains with real-world-like conditions given minimal data.

AXIOM: better, faster, cheaper (and smaller)

Across the ten games in Gameworld 10k which test a model’s ability to perceive, catch, jump, avoid, etc., VERSES AXIOM exhibited superior gameplay capabilities while demonstrating significant efficiency gains and speed, all at a fraction of the size of Google’s DreamerV3 without the use of neural networks, backpropagation and gradient descent used in almost all other AI’s today.

Gameworld 10k Performance Highlights (AXIOM vs DreamerV3)

• 60% better gameplay (normalized performance score: 77 vs 48)
• 7.6 times more sample-efficient (learned in 3,175 steps vs 24,207)
• 39 times faster in GPU runtime (~10 minutes vs ~370 minutes)
• 12 times Cheaper to run (estimated GPU cost: $0.66 vs $25.54)
• 400 times Smaller in model size (0.95 million vs 420 million parameters)
  

“Digital Brain” AXIOM Developed by Leading Neuroscientist Karl Friston

“AXIOM is being developed as the first ‘digital brain’, designed to mirror the modular structure and dynamic processes of our own brains—what we refer to as ‘biomimetic,’” said VERSES Chief Scientist, Professor Karl Friston, AXIOM project leader and one of the world’s most cited neuroscientists. “While conventional AI methods like deep learning excel at pattern recognition, AXIOM has the ability to learn in a manner similar to humans. It doesn’t merely process data; it develops an understanding of its world and how it operates within that world, which I believe will enable it to seek out experiences that massively enhance learning. AXIOM’s capacity to understand, plan, and grow like a brain offers a natural and efficient new paradigm for developing genuinely intelligent agents.”

Third-Party Validation

VERSES submitted the AXIOM paper, mathematical proofs, and source code for independent review to Soothsayer Analytics, an international data science advisory, R&D, and AI certification firm trusted by Fortune 1000 & Global 2000 clients.

“Soothsayer has validated the claims of AXIOM achieving significant gains over leading deep reinforcement learning models,” said Akshay Deshpande, Soothsayer Senior Director of AI and lead researcher on the project. “Our evaluation found that AXIOM’s efficiency stems from its integration of Variational Bayesian Inference with Active Inference, enabling more human-like learning with fewer interactions and faster convergence.” The findings are supported by Dr. Haritima Chauhan, Associate Professor and project co-lead, and Varun Agrawal, research assistant at Soothsayer.

This research paper has been submitted to arXiv and includes test results against multiple leading models, along with detailed mathematical proofs and test code, which are made available under an academic license, enabling replication and broader community engagement. A whitepaper outlining the results is available on verses.ai

Expert Commentary

Dr. David Bray, Ph.D, Chair of the Accelerator & Distinguished Fellow, Stimson Center; Senior Fellow with the Institute for Human-Machine Cognition as well as an expert with MIT Horizon, the Oxford Internet Institute, and Harvard’s Leadership for a Networked World Program, was granted early access to the paper. “In many critical fields, there’s an urgent need for models that are more reliable, less constrained by past training sets, and more adaptable to a changing world,” said Dr. Bray. “Active Inference offers a more transparent, energy-efficient, and generalizable approach to intelligence—one that mirrors how humans learn, adapt, and simplify.   The sample efficiency of AXIOM is particularly noteworthy, showing how it can generalize from fewer examples, much like human cognition, using far less computation. And by using Bayesian model reduction to prune complexity, this work captures a fundamental principle of intelligent behavior: simplify where possible, but not at the expense of understanding. This is the kind of intelligence we need for systems to thrive in complex, real-world environments across both public and private sectors.”

Implications For AI and Genius™

“As a Cognitive Computing Company, VERSES mission has always been to translate insights from the human brain into more effective and trustworthy AI solutions, not for $100 billion data centers, but for 100 billion devices,” said Gabriel René, CEO of VERSES. “Using the brain as a blueprint provided us a breakthrough to design an entirely new class of AI, one that learns in real-time instead of being trained on past data. With AXIOM, we’re not making agentic solutions better by making them bigger; we're making them smarter. And that’s exactly what our customers need: intelligence that fits on the edge, learns on the fly, and makes decisions they can trust. We look forward to integrating AXIOM into upcoming Genius releases to empower the enterprise with agents that are smarter, more reliable, efficient, and explainable.”

Notes to editors

1. Karl Friston’s recent citation count can be found on research.com.
2. Dr David Bray PhD, is a globally recognized expert in AI, data, and emerging technologies, recognized as one of the “top 24 Americans changing the world” by Business Insider for his work in national security, counter-bioterrorism, and public health with has served multiple executive leadership roles across government, academia, and led two successful bipartisan Commissions on the future of AI, cybersecurity, biotech, commercial space, and quantum computing.
3. The AXIOM approach leverages structured reasoning over brute-force learning. It combines biologically inspired modules for perception, action, and prediction, with variational Bayesian inference and active inference principles. The result is a more efficient and adaptive intelligence system.
4. AXIOM’s breakthrough arises from its use of Bayesian model reduction, core functional priors, and active inference-driven planning, allowing for rapid generalization and cross-task performance with minimal data. Unlike large foundation models, Genius operates in real-time, at the edge, and can learn from fewer than 3,200 steps.
5. Further details can be found on arXiv (awaiting publication link) and at verses.ai
   

“ATARI" is a registered trademark of Atari Interactive, Inc. Nothing herein is intended to communicate or imply a sponsorship or endorsement by Atari, or any affiliation therewith, as no such sponsorship, endorsement or affiliation exists.

Forward Looking Information

This press release contains "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities legislation (collectively, “forward-looking statements”). The forward-looking statements herein are made as of the date of this press release only, and the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new information, estimates or opinions, future events or results or otherwise, except as required by applicable law. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects", "is expected", "budgets", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "predicts", "projects", "intends", "targets", "aims", "anticipates" or "believes" or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases or may be identified by statements to the effect that certain actions "may", "could", "should", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. These forward-looking statements include, among other things the importance of AXIOM towards AI and Verses signature product, Genius.

Additionally, forward-looking statements involve a variety of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual plans, intentions, activities, results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future plans, intentions, activities, results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release represent management's best judgment based on information currently available. No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed and actual future results may vary materially. Accordingly, readers are advised not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Neither the Company nor any of its representatives make any representation or warranty, express or implied, as to the accuracy, sufficiency or completeness of the information in this press release. Neither the Company nor any of its representatives shall have any liability whatsoever, under contract, tort, trust or otherwise, to you or any person resulting from the use of the information in this press release by you or any of your representatives or for omissions from the information in this press release.

Investor Relations and Media Inquiries

James Christodoulou
Chief Financial Officer
Verses AI Inc.
[email protected]
(212) 970-8889