A new survey of 100 speakers scheduled for Gamescom Dev 2026 finds that most expect artificial intelligence to affect game-team structure or productivity, while disagreeing about what that change will look like. GamesBeat published the results on August 11, reporting that 83 percent of respondents anticipated some effect. The survey is timely, but it measures the expectations of conference speakers rather than observed outcomes across the entire industry.
The distinction matters for small studios deciding whether to change hiring or production plans. Thirty-six percent expected AI to change roles without reducing teams, 33 percent anticipated smaller teams, and 14 percent expected greater output per person. Those answers point in different operational directions. They do not establish that any one result will occur, nor do they show how much time, cost, or quality would change in a shipped project.
Respondents divide over where AI belongs
The largest group selecting a valuable use for AI, 34 percent, chose code and production. At the same time, 30 percent preferred as little AI involvement in game development as possible. That near split is more useful than a single headline about adoption: even among people chosen to speak at a development conference, there is no common view that broader use is automatically better.
For an indie team, code and production can include very different risk profiles. Generating a disposable editor script is not equivalent to shipping generated dialogue, artwork, or gameplay logic. A practical evaluation should therefore name the task, compare it with a non-AI baseline, record review and correction time, and identify what data leaves the studio. The survey supports testing bounded workflows; it does not support treating every production discipline as interchangeable.
Smaller teams are an opportunity, not a forecast
Thirty-seven percent identified smaller development teams as the biggest opportunity, ahead of new publishing models and community building at 15 percent each. Leadership was also the most requested future skill in the survey, with 29 percent selecting it, followed by communication at 20 percent and AI or machine-learning proficiency at 18 percent. Together, those results suggest that coordination remains important even when teams expect more automation.
It would be a mistake to translate the smaller-team response directly into a staffing target. A compact group may communicate faster, but it also has less redundancy for certification, accessibility, localization, security, live operations, and platform-specific testing. If an AI tool accelerates asset creation or coding, the saved time may be better spent on review and player testing than removed from the schedule. That is an editorial inference, not a result measured by the survey.
Economic pressure shapes the discussion
The same respondents placed economic uncertainty first among current challenges at 54 percent. Market saturation followed at 38 percent, discoverability at 35 percent, and rising development costs at 30 percent; multiple answers were allowed. On discoverability, 32 percent wanted more transparent platform algorithms, while 22 percent selected better storefront recommendations and 21 percent chose more curated editorial features. AI-assisted production cannot by itself solve those distribution problems.
Gamescom Dev’s official conference page confirms that the event runs August 23 through August 25 in Cologne, Germany, and describes it as a meeting point for studios, publishers, and industry experts. That context explains whose opinions the survey captures: selected speakers gathering before a professional conference, not a random sample of all developers.
Small studios can use the findings as a checklist rather than a mandate. Test one workflow with a measurable baseline, keep human ownership of final work, document source and licensing requirements, and examine whether faster production actually improves the bottleneck that matters. The confirmed result is broad expectation of change combined with substantial disagreement over its form. Claims that AI will necessarily shrink teams, lower costs, or improve finished games go beyond the evidence presented.