“Roughly Nine Out of Ten” Game Devs Are Already Using AI, They’re Just Not Telling Players, Claims Google Cloud Games’ Boss

After telling the video game industry that they should "embrace AI like Iron Man's suit" in one interview, in another, this time with MobileGamer.Biz, the head of Google Cloud's games division, Jack Buser is claiming that the industry has actually already embraced AI-powered tools. Buser claims that "roughly nine out of ten game developers" told Google "yeah, we're using it," in a survey Google conducted during Gamescom 2026, asking developers if they are using AI-powered tools.

Buser even went as far as to claim that players just don't realize that the games they are enjoying and love to play "right now" were made with AI-powered tools, and that other surveys that report less AI-tool usage only do so because studios are unwilling to disclose the fact that they are using them.

"When there are technological revolutions in this industry, oftentimes you have a reaction from the player that's like, hold on, I know what my favourite games are, and I'm worried about change," Buser said in an attempt to explain what players are feeling about AI and, more specifically, Generative AI-powered tools. "Am I going to like the games of the future? Because I sure like the games I'm playing now. And I totally get that reaction."

"I think what players don't realize is that their favourite games right now were already built with AI. Those games have shipped. We did a survey around Gamescom last summer with studios all over the world. Roughly nine out of ten game developers told us, yeah, we're using it. Now you'll see other surveys from other organizations that have that more around like 40-50%. And you might ask yourself, well, that's still a large number. It's still almost half of the developers out there. What's the gap?"

"That gap is basically the developers willingness to tell you whether the fact of the matter is that it's being used."

Buser specifically cites Capcom, as a major studio that is a "big user" of Google Cloud's AI tools, though it's worth noting that Capcom should not be mixed into the category of companies that are not disclosing their AI tool usage. Last month, Capcom publicly told its investors that it will use GenAI tools " to improve efficiency and productivity in the game development process," specifically calling out graphics, sound, and programming as areas where GenAI tools could be utilized.

In that same meeting, Capcom also specified that it will not use those same tools to create assets and materials that will end up in their final products.

After citing Capcom, Buser goes on to describe an example as how Google Cloud's AI tools are being used, claiming that "one of the big problems that they have is they're building these massive worlds and they've got to fill it with content. Just coming up with all the ideas for every pebble by the side of the road, every blade of grass, and having all those art reviews, the manual labour just starts piling up in pre-production." To clarify, Buser does not seem to be specifically referring to Capcom in this moment, and the problem that 'they' have is more likely referring to major studios across the industry.

Buser continues, "What they're doing is they're using Nano Banana and Gemini to rapidly generate just countless ideas, and then they're talking to Gemini to actually go through those ideas and curate them...and of these thousands of things, here are the ones that are probably most interesting to you as the art director. And then the art director takes that and then gets the art team going on these items, the AI is already pre-filtered and pre-selected the probably really good looking pebbles on the side of the road - and then all their creative energy gets focused towards the high value creative task, the main character, the big enemies, the main scene, objects, that kind of stuff."

The problem with Buser's framing of how Google Cloud's AI tools are being used is that they are presented as new ideas that anyone who has been around the industry understands to be old hat. Art directors and artists haven't been bogged down by the look of individual pebbles or trees for years. There are already widely accepted tools to make trees and pebbles, and if Buser is trying to suggest that the artists hired by major studios, like Capcom, can't quickly create a good-looking pebble, then Buser sounds uninformed on the artistic skills required to create pebbles.

It's also worth noting that Buser simply presents these claims and attempts to disparage other surveys, like the GDC State of the Game Industry Report 2026, without anything beyond a vague comment. Though he doesn't call out GDC's survey, it does in fact say that a majority of studios are already using GenAI tools, with the results from its respondents coming in at 52%.

GDC's survey doesn't cover the entire industry, but at least we know those figures are coming directly from workers within the industry, and there's a publicly available report we can all analyze and criticize, not opaque 'rough' ideas. Buser's also not the first, and likely won't be the last, executive to claim that developers simply aren't being truthful about their usage of AI tools. A claim that should inherently be questioned if you work for a company that looks to profit from game developers using your AI tools.

Yes, it is clear that the video game industry cannot sustain production timelines that last over half a decade, and yes, everyone in the industry, specifically the biggest publishers and developers, are trying to find ways to make games faster while spending less without sacrificing quality.

But Buser's framing that GenAI tools are already accomplishing this is by no means proven, and to try to pin inflated development costs on countless art reviews ignores the other glaring issues causing industry instability and unsustainable development timelines.

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