Less than a month after Electronic Arts (EA) announced its acquisition by a consortium of investors — including Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners — reports have emerged that the company’s employees are being strongly encouraged to use AI tools for nearly all their work activities.
The news was first reported by Business Insider, which spoke with several verified EA employees who wished to remain anonymous.
Growing AI Integration Inside EA
According to the report, EA’s management has been urging employees to use AI for about a year, long before the acquisition was publicly announced — though it’s likely that the negotiations were already underway given the scale of the deal.
EA leaders have instructed employees to apply AI in various areas, from generating code during game development to creating concept art. Even mid-level managers have been encouraged to use AI-based tools to receive advice on how to communicate with team members about topics like promotions and performance reviews.
Training and Employee Concerns
To support this shift, the company has required staff to take several AI training courses, covering how to use AI tools to speed up workflows and employ generative AI as a “thought partner.” These details were confirmed by internal documents obtained by Business Insider (thanks VGC).
However, employees reported that these AI systems often produce faulty code and inaccurate outputs, which then need to be corrected manually — ultimately costing time instead of saving it.
One former employee, who was part of Respawn Entertainment’s QA team before being laid off earlier this year, said he was dismissed because AI tools could analyze and summarize playtester feedback without additional cost. According to him, this was one of the main reasons for his termination, which affected about 100 Respawn employees.
Many analysts now predict that EA’s heavy reliance on AI tools could lead to further layoffs in the future, especially since the company must now address part of the debt created during the acquisition process.
