EA CEO says 85% of QA work uses AI but company is hiring more people than ever before

EA CEO says 85% of the Battlefield 6 and The Sims publisher's QA work uses AI, but it's not taking jobs, it's making them: "We hire more QA people than we ever have"

In an attempt to counter the notion that EA is replacing human labor with AI, CEO Andrew Wilson says the tech has somehow created more jobs within the publisher. As much appears to be what's happening in the QA department, at least. He addressed concerns during Iicon, a games conference in Las Vegas organized by the Entertainment Software Association, the same outfit behind the now-defunct E3. "I saw some data recently, I think, now almost all - like 85% - of our quality assurance [work] is done with some kind of machine learning or AI-driven algorithm," he explains during an on-stage interview, per Game File. "Yet as a company, we hire more QA people than we ever have," he adds. I have to say, that seems counter-intuitive to the whole workflow. Why bother with the new technology if it's requiring more hands on deck and not less? And isn't the whole pitch that it'll streamline processes? I digress, back to Wilson. The jobs being given to AI are basic, according to him: "The simple stuff - turn the box on, turn the box off, boot it up, shut it down, does it crash, all these things." Real people come in afterward to analyze the readouts and findings. Given the proclivity of hallucinations and simply bad data, this part seems intrinsic if you want quality assurance that actually assures quality. When questioned about if AI is taking jobs at EA, or just augmenting them, Wilson says it's only mostly the latter at present. "So far, it's been almost entirely augmentation," he says. Wilson previously stated that AI is at "the very core of our business" in 2024. Amid the announcement of the publisher's proposed buyout by a group of investors including Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners last year, EA said it "will maintain a thoughtful, steady approach to AI." There have been reports of EA bringing in chatbots for mandatory use across the business, including for HR and managerial matters. These claims remain unsubstantiated, but from what Wilson's said here, the tech is making its way into certain facets of the development pipeline, and that doesn't appear to be changing for the time being.

EA CEO Andrew Wilson downplays the idea of AI taking people's jobs

Dread it, run from it, it seems that AI is truly inevitable in the gaming industry. Even if it won't be generating games at the press of a button, it seems that a lot of companies are adopting the technology in some capacity, and seeing how it can help workflow. The immediate worry, of course, is that AI will start taking people's jobs. EA CEO Andrew Wilson doesn't have that worry. At iicon, a conference for video game executives organised by the people who once ran E3, Wilson was asked about how AI is used at EA (via GameFile). Wilson said that even if AI is doing a lot of work right now, they're still hiring more people. "I saw some data recently, I think, now almost all -- like 85% -- of our quality assurance [work] is done with some kind of machine learning or AI-driven algorithm. Yet as a company, we hire more QA people than we ever have," Wilson said. When asked what kind of work the AI does, Wilson responded by saying it seems only able to handle rudimentary work at the moment. It can handle "the simple stuff: turn the box on, turn the box off, boot it up, shut it down, does it crash, all these things." Wilson claims that right now, EA's implementation of AI has been "entirely augmentation." It might make people a bit more comfortable to have tech working alongside them, but get too comfortable and in today's industry, you may end up as part of the new layoffs statistic. It's hard to imagine this AI situation not developing towards replacement, but Wilson doesn't seem too concerned right now.