Jackbox CEO says studio will not use generative AI

Jackbox Games CEO Mike Bilder said during a Nov. 8, 2026 visit to the company’s Chicago headquarters that the studio is not pursuing generative AI, a tool that creates text, images or other content, and that people do all of its work with no intention of changing that position.

Bilder described generative AI as powerful for tooling and research but said the studio has no plan to replace people with it and is not an AI expert. The comments came after the Oct. 14 launch of Jackbox Party Pack 12 on Steam and other platforms. It includes Trivia Murder Party 3. That game uses extensive real-time 3D graphics.

Game Developers Conference planners said in a January report that the company-level figure was 52% and the individual-use figure was 36%. Developers mainly apply the technology to research and brainstorming, at 81%, or to writing emails and scheduling and code assistance, each at 47%. The same report found that developers’ negative view reached 52%, compared with 30% the previous year.

Gamers have rebelled over undisclosed generative AI in games, and Nvidia’s DLSS 5 reveal drew backlash. The reveal changed character models into a yassified style without developer input. Larian Studios faced backlash in December after its CEO, Swen Vincke, mentioned generative AI for the studio’s next Divinity game, and in January said it would drop some generative tools. Sherveen Uduwana said players feel betrayed when they find undisclosed generative AI in games, as with last year’s The Alters.

Chris Hays, a lead services programmer at id Software and a lead organizer at its Big Friendly Union, said generative AI should never replace what a person could not do. Sherveen Uduwana, treasurer of the United Videogame Workers union, which made its public debut at GDC 2025, said humans must amend AI errors because thousands of labor hours create the detail players notice. Hays said generative AI does not match the web’s impact, noting that people were not begging to use the web when it came out.

He said freelancers he has spoken to like the AI push because they get hired to fix AI’s mistakes. At GDC 2026 in San Francisco in mid-March, a few smaller games were using generative AI while much of the industry stayed quiet. Primitive generative-AI-powered NPCs using Nvidia tech and Microsoft Copilot in-game tips had not shown up in any big game in 2026.

Google demonstrated Gemini generative AI assistant uses at its GDC booth, including players talking through a village to order a drink. Parallel Studios’ Colony, a phone strategy game, is aiming to release in the next three months. It uses Gemini to judge player suggestions for in-game challenges. It uses a Nano Banana plus Atlas workflow to convert images, with each conversion taking about two and a half minutes.

Andrew Veen said Gemini helped Parallel Studios do more work in its most recent three months than in the prior eight months alone. Irena Pereira, founder of Unleashed Games, said generative AI helps with the blank page problem by producing hundreds of ideas to build one promising one into a quest, item, character, or story beat. She said it may be used in preproduction or organization but not in the final product.

Hays and Uduwana said generative AI shows up mainly in smaller games because the tools are not ready and because developers like themselves resist technologies that threaten fellow workers’ jobs. He said Microsoft, which owns id Software, backs AI heavily but has only said it wants generative AI tools that speed up work, and the Big Friendly Union is taking Microsoft at its word. He said studios that push AI are struggling, and that studios wanting to succeed will not use AI tools.

Jackbox doubled in size over five years to 90 employees, developed 62 unique titles across 27 products, and offers French, German, and Spanish localization. The company is hiring across all areas to support its growth, and Bilder said the core audience really has not changed since 2014.

The company is publishing third-party titles, including Toot Games’ My Arms Are Longer Now. It also plans a standalone Trivia Murder Party 3 later in 2026. Andy Kniaz, vice president of business development, said Party Packs appear on 12 major gaming platforms. He said few indie developers have Jackbox’s platform reach, citing its production discipline, marketing and community systems, and a culture that understands game development.

Bilder called the publishing move an olive branch for independent developers who have struggled to find a publisher or funding. He said publishing lets Jackbox put its growing team on publishing instead of making several Party Packs at once, which could eat into its audience, and that Jackbox plans to publish games offering different gameplay than its usual phone-and-TV party games.

Jackbox announced a Netflix partnership in April 2026 for three titles on Netflix’s connected TV (CTV) platform. The company also plans its own streaming service and CTV app later in 2026. Bilder said the Netflix deal resembles Jackbox’s ties to Sony and Microsoft and called it just a new platform for its games.

The company wants its streaming service to be the final destination for casual CTV players. It plans to launch its own CTV app later in 2026. Bilder said Jackbox aims to expand its offering and grow through volume instead of price hikes. He noted that costs rise with inflation and wages.