Highlights
- Steam records a sharp rise in AI disclosures among new releases.
- Smaller studios show greater reliance on generative AI tools.
- Growing adoption raises questions about transparency and originality in game development.
AI-generated content is becoming increasingly common among new Steam releases, with 49.9% of games launched in October 2026 carrying an AI disclosure. The figure comes from an independent analysis of 63,596 games released between January 2024 and October 2026, using Steam's public data.
It marks an increase from 26.4% in October 2025 and 1.7% in January 2024.
Reddit user u/ploz conducted the analysis, which found that annual disclosures increased from 13.2% in 2024 to 24% in 2025 and 40.1% in 2026 thus far. Games are counted by their release month, even if developers added disclosures later.
Smaller Developers Report Higher AI Adoption
The findings show a difference in disclosure rates based on review counts and release volume:
- 47% of 2026 releases with fewer than 10 reviews disclosed AI use, compared with 14% of games with at least 1K reviews.
- Developers releasing 10 or more games reported AI use in 68% of their titles, against 37% among developers with one release.
- Games with AI disclosures averaged 77% positive reviews, compared with 83% for games without them, among titles with at least 50 reviews.
Artwork Dominates AI Use as Cost and Transparency Concerns Persist
Artwork accounted for 63% of disclosures, followed by text and translations (30%), store pages and marketing (26%), code (16%), music (21%), and voices (7%). Only 3% reported AI-generated content during gameplay, while 8% used AI exclusively for store pages.
Reddit user u/KingBlackToof highlighted localization costs, estimating $1K-$2K USD for Simplified Chinese translation and another $1K per additional language. Although AI translation with human proofreading offers a cheaper alternative, the developer decided against it over concerns about translation quality and negative reviews.
Another Reddit user, u/Overlord_Mykyta, questioned the 16% figure for AI-assisted coding, arguing that autocomplete and code-generation tools are already widely used. However, Valve's January 2026 revision excludes behind-the-scenes development tools from disclosure requirements.
AI adoption is also growing on platforms such as Roblox, where more than 80% of the top 100 games by hours engaged used AI tools. Roblox is expanding AI-powered creation and cross-platform distribution, while its 37% year-over-year (YoY) daily active users (DAU) growth in India highlights the market's continued expansion despite declining global engagement.
AI is lowering development costs, but growing reliance on generated content risks making originality and transparency secondary to output.
