Dueling industry surveys show Japanese game devs are embracing AI, while North American ones are still skeptical

Dueling industry surveys show Japanese game devs are embracing AI, while North American ones are still skeptical Welcome to the Smile Economy 🙂. As reported by Automaton, the 2026 CESA Videogame Industry Report, a survey-based assessment of the Japanese games business, shows a sharp uptick in AI adoption by Japanese developers: 85.8% in 2026, up from 51% just last year. In July, a separate survey covering just online game devs showed a 100% rate of AI adoption. Breaking things down further, 63% of total respondents claim to use generative AI tools on a daily basis, while 22.8% turn to them more irregularly.