Gaming industry giants Electronic Arts (EA) and Krafton have announced major commitments to generative artificial intelligence (AI), prioritizing creative empowerment and operational efficiency in game development. EA has formed a strategic partnership with Stability AI, the creator of the popular Stable Diffusion model, to co-develop generative AI models, tools, and workflows aimed at revolutionizing game creation processes.
The partnership focuses on practical applications, including accelerating the creation of physically based rendering (PBR) materials through artist-driven workflows, such as generating 2D textures with precise colors and light accuracy. Additionally, the companies are developing AI systems capable of pre-visualizing entire 3D environments from prompts, enabling rapid prototyping and visual storytelling while allowing artists to maintain creative control and quality standards. EA's VP of Creative Innovation, Kallol Mitra, emphasized, "Creativity has always been at the heart of everything our teams do. Together with Stability AI, we’re amplifying that creativity. Giving artists, designers, and developers the power to dream bigger and build more."
This AI push follows EA's recent announcement of a $55 billion acquisition deal involving the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners, which faced criticism over potential debt burdens and national security concerns.
Meanwhile, Krafton, known for titles like PUBG and Subnautica, is undergoing a comprehensive transformation into an "AI-first" company, centering operations around agentic AI to automate workflows and free up employees for creative tasks. The company is investing approximately 100 billion KRW (nearly $70 billion) in GPU cluster infrastructure to support sophisticated reasoning and iterative planning tasks. Starting in 2026, Krafton will allocate roughly 30 billion KRW (nearly $21 billion) annually for employee AI tool utilization—more than 10 times its current support level.
The transformation is structured in three stages: establishing an AI-first culture through learning platforms and hackathons, innovating work methods by restructuring organizational management, and providing new growth opportunities via expanded employee mobility and role expansion. Krafton CEO Kim Chang-han stated, "We will leap forward as a company that promotes the growth of members and expands the organization’s areas of challenge through AI." The company aims to finalize its AI platform and data integration foundation by the second half of 2026, strengthening its competitive position in the global gaming market.
Both EA and Krafton join other publishers like Ubisoft and Microsoft in adopting generative AI, despite concerns from some gamers and developers about job displacement and the erosion of human creativity in game development.
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