LONDON — June 2026
Mahjong Stars today unveiled Mahjong Stars Companions, a new AI-powered system designed to help players learn faster, compete more confidently, and build a deeper connection to the game over time.
Built in partnership with Neurons Lab and powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS), Companions combine gameplay analysis, personalized coaching, sparring partners, AI opponents, and player-specific learning models into a single experience.
Designed for the entire Mahjong Stars ecosystem, Companions will support multiple Mahjong rulesets, including Japanese Riichi Mahjong, Kansai Mahjong, Shenzhen Mahjong, and additional formats introduced in the future.
Mahjong is one of the world’s largest and most enduring gaming communities, with more than 600 million players worldwide. Yet despite its scale, the category remains fragmented and underserved digitally. Mahjong Stars is building a modern social gaming platform where players can compete, improve, connect, and build identity over time. Companions are a key part of that vision.
Rather than automating gameplay, Companions act as intelligent partners that help players understand the game more deeply. The system evaluates the current table state, analyzes possible outcomes, learns how individual players approach the game, and explains its reasoning so players can improve over time while preserving the challenge and skill that define competitive Mahjong.
Closing the Experience Gap
Every Mahjong decision exists within a constantly changing web of probabilities, opportunities, threats, and incomplete information. Experienced players process these variables almost instinctively. They recognize familiar patterns, understand when to push for value or play defensively, and adapt their strategy as the table evolves. Building that intuition traditionally requires years of practice.
Mahjong Stars Companions help shorten that learning curve by giving players access to strategic insights drawn from thousands of historical game situations and advanced analytical evaluation. Every recommendation is grounded in evidence, contextualized for the current game state, and tailored to the individual player.
The result is a platform that helps players learn faster, make more informed decisions, and deepen their understanding of the game without diminishing the competitive challenge that makes Mahjong rewarding.
More Than Coaching
Mahjong Stars Companions are designed to become long-term AI companions that evolve alongside each player.
Every match helps the system learn how a player approaches risk, evaluates opportunities, reacts under pressure, and develops strategy over time. As Companions evolve, players can use them across multiple experiences within Mahjong Stars, including:
- Personalized coaching and strategic guidance
- AI sparring partners for practice
- Gameplay assistance and analysis
- Adaptive AI opponents
- Player clones that learn from individual playstyles
- Cross-ruleset strategic support across the Mahjong Stars platform
The result is a living system that helps players improve while contributing to a more active and engaging Mahjong Stars ecosystem.
From Game State to Strategic Insight
Companions evaluate a player’s complete game state, including hand composition, discard history, table threats, scoring opportunities, and remaining tile availability. In seconds, the system reasons through possible outcomes and generates recommendations supported by multiple intelligence layers working together.
Learning from Real Games
The platform searches a library of historical gameplay positions to identify situations most similar to the current hand. It then examines what decisions players made in those situations and how the hands ultimately unfolded.
Rather than relying solely on theoretical models, recommendations are informed by patterns and outcomes observed across thousands of real game states, helping players benefit from experience accumulated across the wider Mahjong community.
Evaluating Risk and Opportunity
Multiple analytical engines assess both offensive and defensive considerations. One measures how each possible decision affects a player’s path toward a winning hand, while another evaluates risk based on table conditions, opponent behavior, and emerging threats.
Together, they provide a comprehensive view of the trade-offs behind every decision.
Adapting to Individual Players
No two competitors approach Mahjong in exactly the same way. Companions develop an understanding of each player’s tendencies over time, including risk appetite, preferred scoring strategies, and decision-making patterns under pressure.
Recommendations adapt accordingly, creating guidance that reflects individual playstyles rather than generic best practices.
Explaining the Reasoning
Every recommendation includes a clear explanation of the factors influencing the decision, associated risks, and relevant historical precedents.
Players are not simply given answers. They gain visibility into the reasoning process behind strong strategic decisions, turning every recommendation into an opportunity to learn.
The result is a more transparent and adaptive experience that helps players understand not only what move to make, but why it makes sense in the context of the game.
What They Said
“Mahjong has always rewarded experience. The more situations you encounter, the stronger your instincts become. We wanted to create a system that helps players access that kind of strategic understanding much earlier in their journey.
Companions are about more than coaching. We see them becoming personalized AI teammates that grow alongside players, helping them improve, compete, and engage with the game in entirely new ways. The goal isn’t to automate Mahjong. It’s to help players learn faster, compete with greater confidence, and enjoy a deeper connection to the game.”
Jonas Alm
Founder, Mahjong Stars
“One of the most interesting aspects of the system is that it doesn’t just search for similar positions—it looks at what happened next and how those hands ultimately played out. Combined with real-time strategic analysis and player-specific personalization, that creates recommendations that are both explainable and deeply contextual.
The result is a system that helps players make stronger decisions while understanding the reasoning behind them.”
Alex Honchar
CTO & Co-Founder, Neurons Lab
Building the Future of Social Mahjong
Mahjong Stars is building a new generation of social Mahjong experiences that combine competitive gameplay, community participation, creator-driven content, live events, and personalized AI.
Built on AWS, Mahjong Stars Companions represent the foundation of the platform’s long-term AI strategy. Future capabilities include expanded coaching experiences, adaptive sparring partners, personalized AI opponents, player clones, support for additional Mahjong rulesets, and deeper social features across the Mahjong Stars ecosystem.
As Mahjong Stars continues its roadmap toward global expansion, Companions will play a central role in creating a living social gaming world where players can learn, compete, connect, and build lasting identities within the community.
For Mahjong Stars, the objective is not to reduce the complexity that makes Mahjong compelling. It is to make that complexity more accessible, helping more players experience the depth, creativity, social connection, and strategic richness that have made the game endure for generations.
About Mahjong Stars by Wasabi Productions
Mahjong Stars is a social multiplayer Mahjong platform developed by Wasabi Productions, a gaming studio focused on building engaging live-service gaming experiences for global audiences. Through competitive gameplay, tournaments, community features, and innovative technology, Mahjong Stars aims to make Mahjong more accessible, engaging, and rewarding for players around the world.
About Neurons Lab
Neurons Lab is an AI engineering partner that helps organizations design, build, and deploy AI systems that solve complex business challenges. With more than 100 successful engagements across Europe, Asia, and North America—including work with HSBC, Visa, and AXA—Neurons Lab combines AI strategy, training, and engineering to help organizations move from experimentation to adoption. Neurons Lab is an AWS Advanced Tier Services Partner and AWS Agentic AI Competency holder.
