More game developers are starting to use generative AI

More video game developers are using generative AI tools in their jobs compared to last year, according to the GDC Festival of Gaming’s latest annual industry survey. Forty percent of developers surveyed say they use it “as part of their job,” an increase from 36 percent in 2025. Usage was higher with game developers that work on free-to-play games at 58 percent and mobile-only studio workers at 70 percent.

The survey is being published as the game industry continues to reckon with generative AI tools. While many game developers, particularly indie developers, have spoken out strongly against the technology, AI is at the center of indie awards conversations in part because Big Walk developer House House “sparingly” used LLMs to assist with technical challenges in the “final stretch” of development. AI is also increasingly being used to reverse-engineer retro games. And in a post on Thursday, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma seemed to indicate that AI will be central to Xbox’s future, saying that “A small team will be able to build worlds that today demand hundreds of developers and hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Seventy three percent of the survey’s respondents said they used AI for research and brainstorming, while 62 percent used it for data analysis and summarization, and 56 percent for code generation and debugging. Twenty two percent of respondents used generative AI for concept art or visual ideation, and 8 percent used it for production art or final game assets.

The survey also included grim numbers about layoffs, with 34 percent of respondents saying they have been laid off sometime in the past two years.