Introduction The games industry is currently in the midst of profound changes, with development costs rising, markets increasingly saturated, and players gravitating toward older games—all of which underscore the need for studios to continuously innovate. In this landscape, generative AI (gen AI) has emerged as a powerful ally. Currently, 97% of game developers say that gen AI is reshaping the industry, leading to intense experimentation, AI-integrated workflows, and enhanced player experiences. But how are these innovations playing out for developers? What impact is AI having on the industry? Is it opening up new opportunities for careers—or even companies? What types of gameplay are being created? How is it impacting game development pipelines? Where are the most promising avenues for growth? And what concerns is it raising? To find the answers to these questions and more, Google Cloud and The Harris Poll conducted a research study in late June and early July 2025 with 615 game developers in the United States, South Korea, Norway, Finland, and Sweden. In the following pages, you can find the highlights of this survey and their implications for both the current state of AI in the industry, and where it may be heading next.

Executive summary The study confirmed the massive impact of gen AI on game development, with respondents largely agreeing that it is having a positive influence across a wide range of creative efforts, business settings, and internal workflows. However, it's clear that game developers face some hesitancy around the adoption of gen AI, particularly due to data and ownership rights. Key findings include: Universal adoption: AI is already ubiquitous in game development, playing a major role in streamlining repetitive tasks and enhancing creative workflows. This is helping to level the playing field, allowing innovative new startups to compete with larger, more established studios. Promising new trends: AI agents are also on the rise. Developers are building and deploying them for intelligent nonplayer character (NPC) behavior, dynamic gameplay balancing, and much more. New roles and responsibilities: New AI-based roles are emerging, while existing jobs are increasingly integrating AI into their workflows, with 90% of games developers already using it in their work. Rising player expectations: 89% of developers report that AI integration is changing player expectations, with 37% seeing gamers looking for more lifelike experiences. Ownership considerations: While AI shows promise in addressing longstanding issues in the industry and in game development, 63% of developers also express concerns about data ownership, while 35% worry about player data privacy.

AI’s winning role The survey finds AI is receiving a positive reception in the games industry—and opening up new possibilities. The games industry has long been ultra-competitive, Most promising trends perceived by games professionals: but in recent years, it has navigated a rising tide of layoffs, studio closures, longer development cycles AI-driven AI for balancing AI-powered for new games, and skyrocketing costs for major game engines gameplay testing and QA titles. For smaller studios, standing out against a sea of new releases has grown increasingly difficult. In this environment, developers overwhelmingly see gen AI as a positive development, and one that is 40% 40% 36% leading to better outcomes. When it comes to general impact, more than 90% of developers say it is helping with an array of challenges, including driving innovation and enhancing the player experience.

AI especially shines in its ability to automate cumbersome and And, some see AI as a transformative force in the broader repetitive tasks, freeing developers to focus on more strategic industry: driving democratization across studios and enabling and creative concerns—not to mention reducing iteration independent studios to level the playing field with more cycles and decreasing time-to-market. In particular, 47% of established players. developers report that it is speeding up playtesting and balancing of mechanics, 45% say it is assisting in localization and translation of game content, and 44% cite it for improving code generation and scripting support. Developers in the 29% United States report this more so than those in South Korea, especially when it comes to AI-driven playtesting, automated content tagging, and enhanced code generation. 97% say it is democratizing the games industry see gen AI reshaping the industry 95% say it is reducing repetitive tasks in workflows 94% say it is driving innovation

The rise of AI agents AI agents are software systems that use AI to pursue goals and The research revealed that a significant subset of developers is already complete tasks on behalf of users. They can demonstrate deploying AI agents in their games. For example, 44% are using AI agents reasoning, planning, and memory, and have a level of autonomy to for content optimization, 38% for dynamic balancing and tuning of learn, adapt, and make decisions. gameplay, and 38% for in-game coaching and automated tutorials. Developers in the United States are deploying agents at a faster rate than These capabilities are made possible in large part by the multimodal other markets, with a particular focus on NPC behavior, automated testing, capacity of gen AI and AI foundation models. As a result, agents can and in-game coaching and advanced tutorials. process information, such as text, voice, code, audio, and video, enabling them to converse, reason, make decisions, and even learn and improve in these capacities over time. Agents can also work with other agents to coordinate and perform more complex workflows, as well as facilitate transactions and business processes.

h as text, voice, code, audio, and video, enabling them to converse, reason, make decisions, and even learn and improve in these capacities over time. Agents can also work with other agents to coordinate and perform more complex workflows, as well as facilitate transactions and business processes. This signals a shift toward systems that respond in real time, reducing the need for manual adjustments, and enabling more flexible and 87% dynamic game environments. For example, games today can feature NPC agents that can intelligently collaborate with each other to attack a player using complex strategies like flanking, weapon-sharing, and even setting traps and modifying terrain features to gain an advantage. AI agents can also vary the difficulty of the scenario to are using AI agents in their work match each playing style or ability of the player.