A hot potato: Just because game company executives love AI, it doesn't mean everyone feels the same way. According to a new survey from GDC, over half of game developers think it's having a negative impact on the industry – up from just 18% two years ago. One dev said they would rather "quit the industry than use generative AI."
The Game Developers Conference's 2026 State of the Game Industry survey covers several areas, including the controversial use of generative AI in game development.
The survey shows that over one-third (36%) of game industry professionals are using generative AI tools as part of their job.
At game studios, 30% of respondents reported using AI tools. That's significantly less than the 58% of those at publishing companies, support teams, and marketing/PR firms who say they use AI tools. Unsurprisingly, the area with the highest number of users is business professionals (58%).
While the percentage of game industry pros using generative AI has increased slightly over the last couple of years, their opinion on the technology has changed for the worse in recent times. Of the 2,300 respondents, 52% said they think generative AI is having a negative impact on the game industry. That figure stood at 30% last year, and was just 18% two years ago.
In 2025, 13% of respondents said AI was having a positive effect on the game industry. That figure is now down to just 7%. The numbers are higher for executives, of course.
The most unfavorable views of the technology are held by workers in visual and technical art (64%), game design and narrative (63%), and game programming (59%).
Few sectors face as much backlash for using generative AI as the gaming industry. The outcry is loudest when it's used to generate assets in games, as we saw with Black Ops 7, Anno 117, Arc Raiders, and elsewhere.
Most of the survey's respondents, 81%, said their most common use for AI is research or brainstorming. This was followed by daily tasks (like writing emails) and code assistance (47% each), and prototyping (35%).
The final AI section showed that ChatGPT was the most used LLM in the industry (75%), followed by Google Gemini (37%) and Microsoft Copilot (22%).
The report includes some quotes from respondents. One generative AI supporter called anger toward the technology a "moral panic," another said "we are intentionally working on a platform that will put all game devs out of work and allow kids to prompt and direct their own content."
Another dev said AI is "built on theft and plagiarism" and "a regurgitated amalgamation of everything that's come before."
"Our standing rule is: If one of us brings up using GenAI in any of our work, then it's safe to assume we've been assimilated by The Thing and should be burned alive by Kurt Russell," said a US-based game design consultant.
Earlier this week, Jack Buser, global director for games at Google Cloud, called generative AI the "Iron Man suit" of game development, urging all within the industry to use it.