EA Employees Report Mandatory AI Use During $55 Billion Acquisition Process

Electronic Arts has been directing staff to rely on artificial intelligence for daily tasks, according to detailed reports from current and former employees. The company is in the middle of a $55 billion acquisition agreed in September, backed by Silver Lake, Affinity Partners, and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which involves a leveraged buyout adding about $20 billion in debt to EA. While that business shift continues, internal teams say management has pushed AI across the organization.

Sources told Business Insider that EA leaders have spent the past year urging AI use across nearly all areas of work. The company has about 15,000 employees, and staff said they were expected to complete AI training and treat AI systems as everyday work tools. One system mentioned is ReefGPT, an internal chatbot used inside the company.

Workers said they were instructed to use AI for writing code and creating concept art. Developers reported that the AI-written code often comes out wrong and must be corrected manually. Level designers described being asked to teach the system how their tasks work, which raised worries that the tool might later handle the same work and reduce the need for those roles.

The AI push also reaches management communication. Internal prompts told supervisors to use AI to plan conversations about performance, pay, and promotions. Examples in the report included guidance for speaking with an employee whose work “is negatively affecting business results but who believes otherwise,” and suggested language for situations where a promotion request is turned down.

Concerns have also come from QA staff. A former senior tester at Respawn said he thinks AI influenced his dismissal after the company began using software to read and summarize feedback from play-testers — work he previously handled. He said he was part of a group of about 100 people laid off at the studio in the spring.

EA did not provide a comment to Business Insider regarding the report. In its 10-K filing earlier this year, the company stated that AI could cause “social and ethical issues” and could lead to legal problems, harm EA’s reputation, reduce consumer trust, and hurt financial performance if not handled correctly. EA CEO Andrew Wilson previously told investors that AI is “not merely a buzzword” and called it “the very core of our business.”

Industry data shows rising AI use beyond EA. The Game Developers Conference survey reported 52% of developers work at companies using generative AI. A July review by Totally Human found that about 20% of Steam releases in 2025 had disclosed AI involvement, with disclosure optional, and SteamDB has introduced a filter to block games that report AI use. Elsewhere, Krafton, publisher of Subnautica 2, announced plans to operate as an “AI-first” company, aiming to automate tasks and rely on AI-run management systems. Earlier in October, former God of War executive Meghan Morgan Juinio stated that generative AI can help expand what developers can do.