AI was everywhere at gaming’s big developer conference — except the games | The Verge

GamingAIEntertainmentAI was everywhere at gaming’s big developer conference — except the gamesOf the many developers I spoke to at GDC, nearly every one disavowed using AI in their projects.by Jay PetersMar 22, 2026, 12:00 PM UTCLinkShareGiftIf you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement. Photo by the GDC Festival of GamingGamingAIEntertainmentAI was everywhere at gaming’s big developer conference — except the gamesOf the many developers I spoke to at GDC, nearly every one disavowed using AI in their projects.by Jay PetersMar 22, 2026, 12:00 PM UTCLinkShareGiftIf you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.Jay Peters is a senior reporter covering technology, gaming, and more. He joined The Verge in 2019 after nearly two years at Techmeme.AI was everywhere at the GDC Festival of Gaming this year. Vendors at the event pitched generative AI tools for things like making AI-driven NPCs and even entire games from a chat box. On the show floor, I spent 10 minutes playing a demo of a pixel-art fantasy world generated by Tencent’s AI tools. In a briefing with Razer, I watched an AI assistant for QA automatically log issues in a shooter game. And there were many talks about AI, including a standing-room only presentation by Google DeepMind researchers about playable AI-generated spaces.But there was one key place where AI was missing: the games themselves. Of the many developers I s...