By 2028, half of new Steam games will be created with AI - forecast

Games officially developed with AI already account for almost a third of new releases in the Valve store.

By 2028, generative artificial intelligence could be used in the creation of half of all new games released on Steam. This forecast was made by Sulka Haro, former developer of Habbo Hotel and head of Mainframe Industries.

For his research, he examined 53.6 thousand games released on Steam from July 2023 to July 2026 and found that currently, creators of approximately 31% of new projects – almost every third game – report using AI.

If the growth continues at the same pace, the 50% mark will be surpassed by 2027-2028. It is important to note that Valve has only required developers to disclose the use of generative AI since 2024, and the statistics themselves depend on the integrity of the authors: some projects that used neural networks in their creation may be missing from the sample.

Haro also analyzed about 37 thousand publishers and found that approximately 80% of them have not yet released games with disclosed AI use. Among companies that have already tried new tools, 89% used them in only one project.

In the second quarter of 2026, games using AI accounted for about a third of new Steam releases, but brought in only about 10% of their total revenue. A significant portion of such projects remains virtually unnoticed by players. Haro himself explains this simply: AI lowers the barrier to game development, leading to a large number of low-quality releases.