Generative AI has rapidly become a routine part of game production in Japan, with a new industry survey reporting that 85.8% of Japanese game developers now use the technology in their work at least occasionally, as reported by Automaton.

The figure comes from a preview of the forthcoming CESA Video Game Industry Report 2026, distributed during Tokyo Game Show 2026. Japan’s Computer Entertainment Supplier’s Association organizes the annual event and represents companies throughout the country’s game industry. The full list of CESA member companies includes the likes of Capcom, Sega, Konami, and more.

According to Japanese reporting on the survey, 63% of participating developers said they use generative AI routinely. Occasional users brought the total to 85.8%, indicating that only a relatively small portion of respondents are avoiding the technology altogether. The full report, including additional context about its respondents and methodology, is scheduled for publication in early December.

The result represents a substantial apparent increase from the previous CESA report. Last year, approximately 51% of participating Japanese game companies reported using AI or generative AI during development.

CESA member companies identified workflow efficiency and increased productivity as their most anticipated benefits. Shorter development schedules and reduced development and operating costs followed closely behind.

Those priorities are significant because “using generative AI” does not necessarily mean placing generated character art, dialogue, voices, or other raw content inside a finished game. The category can include programming assistance, internal ideation, documentation, localization, testing, research, asset processing, prototyping, and numerous other production tasks.

The 2025 CESA report found that visual and image generation was the most commonly cited application, followed by story and text generation and programming support. Approximately 32% of participating companies also reported using AI while developing proprietary game engines.

This rapid adoption mirrors results from outside Japan. As 80 Level previously reported, a Google Cloud-commissioned study of 615 developers across the United States, South Korea, Norway, Finland, and Sweden found that 87% were using AI agents in their workflows.

Developers in that study highlighted testing, localization, coding assistance, and multimodal data processing as useful applications. However, they also identified unresolved concerns involving intellectual property, data ownership, implementation expenses, training data, and the difficulty of measuring whether AI investments produce a meaningful return.

CESA’s findings suggest that Japanese companies are responding to similar risks by placing human oversight at the center of their policies. The most frequently reported management measure was requiring people to review, correct, or supervise AI-assisted work.

Tsutomu Masuda, Managing Director of CESA, said the survey demonstrated that generative AI was being adopted broadly and steadily across development environments. He nevertheless emphasized the need to address copyright and other rights-related concerns while balancing technological experimentation against the protection of creators.

That position resembles policies now being articulated by major technology and entertainment companies. Microsoft recently published a draft code outlining the intended behavior and values of its AI models. Its proposals emphasize human control, dignity, autonomy, and the principle that access to information does not automatically provide permission to reproduce it.

Microsoft’s document remains a draft rather than an implemented standard, but its existence reflects the growing need for formal governance as AI systems become integrated into professional pipelines.

Sony has similarly argued that AI should enhance the work of PlayStation Studios while keeping humans at the center. Its current applications include QA, software engineering, animation, performance-capture processing, and repetitive production tasks rather than an emphasis on replacing artists or performers with generated assets.

The CESA survey does not resolve the artistic, legal, or employment debates surrounding generative AI. For more on these topics as they develop, don't forget to subscribe to our Newsletter, join our 80 Level Talent platform and Discord, and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, and Instagram, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.

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