---
title: "AI Couldn’t Beat a Team of Professional Gamers at DOTA 2, but It Held Its Own"
description: "During a major tournament for the strategy game DOTA 2, human gamers emerged victorious over OpenAI Five, a team of five neural networks."
date: "2018-08-27"
modified: "2018-08-27"
authors:
  - name: "Kristin Houser"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/kristin"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-five-dota2"
categories:
  - "Artificial Intelligence"
tags:
  - "artificial intelligence"
  - "dota 2"
  - "gaming"
  - "OpenAI"
  - "the digest"
  - "video games"
---

# AI Couldn’t Beat a Team of Professional Gamers at DOTA 2, but It Held Its Own

![During a major tournament for the strategy game DOTA 2, human gamers emerged victorious over OpenAI Five, a team of five neural networks.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/OpenAI-Five.png>)
*\<em\>Image: Valve Corporation/Victor Tangermann\</em\>*

**AI DEFEAT.** AI may be able to best humans at games like [Go](<https://futurism.com/deepmind-never-found-the-limit-of-alphago-zeros-intelligence>) and [chess](<https://futurism.com/category/ai-artificial-intelligence>) and [poker](<https://futurism.com/category/ai-artificial-intelligence>). But for the cooperative strategy video game DOTA 2, AI [still can't beat the pros](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-five-dota-2>) — at least not yet.

That's the major takeaway from [The International](<http://www.dota2.com/international/overview/>), a tournament for the computer strategy game DOTA 2. During the tournament, research group OpenAI had its OpenAI Five, a team comprising five neural networks, play against professional DOTA 2 players.

It was a best-of-three competition, but the team from paiN Gaming and an all-star team of pros from China confirmed humanity's superiority over the AI team in just two matches.

**TWO TOURNEY TWEAKS.** It's not that the AI is *bad* at the game. In fact, back in June, [OpenAI Five beat a team ](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-five-dota-2>)of five human amateurs at DOTA 2.

But this match was different in a few significant ways. Previously, each member of the AI team had its own invulnerable courier, a key component of the game that delivers supplies to players. For The International, each team had only one courier to share — the OpenAI Five had just a few days to adjust to that prior to the match.

Players couldn't choose their own heroes this time around, either — DOTA 2 experts picked the characters for each player in the tournament, no matter if they were human or AI.

**BACK ON TOP.** Though the humans emerged victorious, OpenAI Five did hold its own. Each match lasted between 45 and 51 minutes — the humans didn't simply destroy the AI team right out the gate. With a bit more time to adjust to the changes from the June match, the AI team might have fared a bit better, too.

For now, the OpenAI researchers plan to continue to improve the system, so maybe it'll be ready to bring it in a future rematch.

**READ MORE:** [AI Isn't Good Enough to Beat the Best 'Dota 2' Players Just Yet](<https://www.engadget.com/2018/08/27/openai-five-dota-2-international/>) \[*Engadget*\]

***More on OpenAI: [The Digest: Five AI Algorithms Worked Together to Beat Humans at a Strategy Game](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-five-dota-2>)***

### Author social links  
[LinkedIn](<https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinjhouser>)