Sega acknowledges “strong resistance” as it turns to AI, but says it’ll use technology ‘appropriately’

Sega has broached the subject of AI following it latest earnings report, confirming its plans to leverage the technology in development as part of “efficiency improvements”. However, it also says it intends to proceed “carefully” in order to identify “appropriate” uses.

The company shared its perspective during a Q&A session coinciding with its Q2 earnings report, responding to a question inquiring if it would pursue larger projects or efficiency. “Rather than fully following the trend toward the large-scale development,” its executives explained in an official translation, “we will also pursue efficiency improvements, such as leveraging AI.”

It also acknowledged the “strong resistance” AI adoption can face in “creative areas such as character creation”, adding it intends to “proceed by carefully assessing appropriate use cases”. It suggested one such area might include “streamlining the development processes” but did not elaborate further.

Sega is, of course, far from the only publisher to weigh in on AI in recent times, with some companies being less cautious than others. EA CEO Andrew Wilson, for instance, has boasted AI is “the very core of our business”, while Take-Two Interactive boss Strauss Zelnick has taken a more measured approach, calling artificial intelligence an “oxymoron” and saying “no creativity… can exist by definition in any AI model.” Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser, meanwhile, has compared the technology to “mad cow disease”, describing the execs pushing it as “not the most humane or creative people”.

Even so, a recent Tokyo Games Show survey reported over half of Japanese game companies are using AI in development. One of those studios – Let it Die: Inferno developer Supertrick Games – this week faced the issue head on after receiving significant criticism for its extensive use of generative AI.