Game developers continue to tread a difficult line with the incorporation of artificial intelligence, aiming to impress investors but avoid the wrath of gamers. In its latest results presentation, Sony dedicated time to discuss how it's using AI in PlayStation game development. It says the tech will “unleash the creativity” of its studios without replacing artists or developers, but the presentation may have left more questions than answers.
Sony said it's using AI to automate repetitive tasks, make payments and transactions more efficient, speed up quality assurance and boost productivity in software engineering. Not much was said about AI asset generation, suggesting the focus is mainly on workflow efficiency. CEO Hiroki Totoki insisted AI won't replace artists or developers, but the company said it's being used in areas like 3D modeling and animation, making the potential use cases sound quite broad.
PlayStation CEO Hideaki Nishino gave an entire presentation about AI in games to investors! Says AI is a powerful tool to deliver cutting-edge entertainment experiences.AI usage examples mentioned:- AI performance capture facial animation- AI hair animation- AI racing agent… pic.twitter.com/TiSenT8iICMay 8, 2026
A specific example mentioned is a tool that Sony calls Mockingbird. Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Hideaki Nishino said the model can speed up facial animation workflows using performance capture data, reducing animation work from hours to "a fraction of a second.” He said the tech was already being used by Diego Studio, which recently released MLB The Show 26 and by The Last of Us developer Naughty Dog.
There was also mention on an AI hair animation tool that converts video footage of hairstyles into strand-level 3D models.
"Importantly, we’re not replacing human performers, but rather optimising how we process the data from these live captures," viewers were told. Human talent would still be responsible for the “vision, design, and emotional impact”.
The company said that it's still working on generating AI NPCs with their own personalities. Sony previously caused controversy with its experiments in AI-driven dynamic character interaction, particularly an AI Aloy from Horizon Forbidden West.
Sony also said it's working on a generative AI video project with Bandai Namco. Not much was revealed about what this involves. Hiroki said it had led to "massive gains in speed and productivity per person" but that there were issues with "consistency and controllability"
Despite the emphasis on human control, the update has generated mixed responses among gamers. It's not entirely clear when Sony's talking about generative AI and when it's talking about the kinds of traditional machine learning algorithms that have been used in game development for years but which now get branded as AI in a bid to impress investors.
Some players are happy to accept AI for things like hair animation but aren't convinced that there won't be an impact on human involvement when the list of uses is so broad.
"People like Nishino purposefully confuse game AI with GenAI to keep it confusing and avoid criticism. Case in point, putting NPCs on the same list as production design. One of them gets workers fired and one doesn’t," one person writes on X.
"Sony just listed every layer of game development AI can touch. Animation, QA, NPCs, upscaling, payments. The interesting part isn't any single use case; it's that there's no part of the production pipeline they left out," another person writes.
Some feel that Sony is using AI a "catchphrase” to please investors after disappointing financial results, and that the tech isn't actually doing anything to increase production. "This is the most nothing deck of slides. [It's] literally 'here’s a bunch of things we do, now put AI in front of it'," someone else argues.
One of the aspects that's sparked most debate is isn't the more headline-grabbing stuff like AI-driven characters but the use of AI for quality assurance. This might be an inevitable area to seek efficiencies given that games are getting so big. Testing everything manually is increasingly time consuming. But some fear the consequences.
"That will lead to lots of game breaking bugs getting into games. And then we'll get lots more 'We're sorry that the game did not meet our expectations' messages," one person predicts.
That could be even more concerning considering that Hideaki also said that AI will lead to a "meaningful increase" in the volume of content. For some more games plus AI-aided QA can only mean one thing: slop.
