Generative artificial intelligence was supposed to free up time for game developers. Instead, according to human resources leaders across the games industry, it is often doing the opposite. At a recent HR Summit organised by GamesIndustry.biz on October 1, multiple sessions converged on the same theme: AI tools are generating new layers of work rather than simply removing old ones, even as studios continue to invest heavily in the technology.
The discussions, drawn from HR professionals working across different studios and company sizes, painted a picture that runs counter to the narrative often pushed by technology vendors and some industry executives, who have framed generative AI as a near-automatic productivity multiplier. Instead, panellists described a more complicated reality in which AI-generated assets, code, and content still require substantial human review before they can be trusted in a production pipeline.
That review process, HR leaders noted, is not trivial. Teams must validate outputs for quality and consistency, correct errors introduced by AI systems, and integrate results into existing workflows that were not originally designed around machine-generated contributions. In several cases, staff reported spending as much time managing AI tools as they previously spent completing tasks manually, with the technology shifting the nature of work rather than reducing its volume.
A Systemic Pattern Across Studios
What distinguished the discussion at the HR Summit was the consistency of the pattern across different organisations. Rather than being confined to a single studio or project with implementation teething problems, the workload paradox surfaced repeatedly across separate sessions, suggesting it reflects a broader industry trend rather than isolated missteps. HR professionals pointed to training requirements as a particular pressure point: staff need to learn how to prompt, supervise, and correct AI systems effectively, and that learning curve itself consumes time and resources that might otherwise go toward core development work.
The findings add nuance to an ongoing debate within the industry about how artificial intelligence should be deployed, and at what pace. As detailed in the original report, “Quite often it’s given me more to do” – Why AI might be creating more work for games companies, rather than saving time, the evidence gathered from HR practitioners challenges assumptions that simply adopting generative tools translates into faster production timelines or leaner teams.
For the wider gaming sector, the implications extend beyond any single studio’s internal operations. As publishers and developers globally weigh further investment in AI-assisted pipelines, the HR Summit findings suggest that realistic planning needs to account for implementation overhead, ongoing oversight costs, and training needs rather than assuming immediate efficiency gains.
The pattern carries particular relevance for the Gulf region, where gaming studios in the UAE and across the GCC have been expanding development capacity and exploring AI-driven tools as part of broader diversification and technology investment strategies. Governments and private investors across the region have positioned gaming as a growth sector, with new studios and incubators emerging in markets such as Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Riyadh. For companies in these markets considering how to integrate generative AI into hiring plans, budgets, or production schedules, the lesson emerging from the HR Summit is one of caution: technology adoption may require more structured oversight, dedicated training programmes, and realistic resourcing rather than being treated as a straightforward route to cutting headcount or accelerating output. As regional studios scale up, those implementation lessons could prove as valuable as the AI tools themselves.
