Inside the AI divide roiling video game giant Electronic Arts

TITLE: The AI Revolution Meets Resistance: Inside Electronic Arts’ Workplace Transformation

The Great AI Divide in Gaming’s Corporate Halls

At Electronic Arts, the tension between executive enthusiasm and employee skepticism over artificial intelligence has reached a boiling point. Internal communications reveal a stark contrast between leadership’s push for widespread AI adoption and workers’ concerns about job security, increased workloads, and technological limitations. This divide reflects a broader corporate struggle playing out across industries as companies race to implement AI while their workforce questions the real-world implications.

Executive Mandates Meet Employee Resistance

Electronic Arts leadership has spent the past year aggressively promoting AI integration across nearly all aspects of its operations. According to internal documents and employee accounts, the company expects staff to use AI for everything from generating code and concept art to scripting sensitive conversations about compensation and promotions. Multiple AI training courses have become mandatory in some departments, with employees encouraged to view generative AI as a “thought partner” in their daily work.

However, this top-down approach has encountered significant pushback. “The tools we’re told to use, including ReefGPT, often produce flawed code and hallucinations that require additional work to correct,” one EA employee told Factory News Today under condition of anonymity. “Creative staff are particularly concerned that we’re essentially training our replacements.”, according to market trends

The Human Cost of Automation

The consequences of AI adoption are already materializing in workforce reductions. A recently laid-off senior quality-assurance designer from EA’s Respawn Entertainment studio revealed that AI had taken over a core aspect of his job—analyzing and summarizing feedback from hundreds of play testers. He believes this automation contributed to his dismissal, part of a larger wave of approximately 100 layoffs from the studio this past spring., according to technology insights

This trend extends beyond Electronic Arts. The video game industry has shed an estimated 14,600 jobs in 2024 alone, with global employment in the sector declining roughly 9% from its 2022 peak of 350,000 workers. Studio consolidation, increased automation, and shifting production models are driving this contraction despite growing consumer spending on games.

Creative Industries Face Unique Challenges

The AI revolution presents particular complications for creative fields like video game development. A recent survey of 3,000 game creators found nearly a third believe generative AI is having a negative impact on their industry—a significant 12-point increase from 2024. Approximately half expressed serious concerns about the ethics of AI in game development, with respondents citing worries about intellectual property theft, energy consumption, and embedded biases.

“It’s a problem when the dogs won’t eat the dog food,” says Doug Creutz, an analyst at TD Cowen who covers the entertainment industry. This sentiment captures the fundamental challenge facing companies pushing AI adoption: when the very creators who built the industry are skeptical, implementation becomes exponentially more difficult.

The Psychology of AI Acceptance

Research into human-AI interaction reveals that resistance isn’t simply about job protection. A comprehensive meta-analysis of 163 studies published in the Psychological Bulletin demonstrates that people prefer AI over humans in specific contexts—particularly when the technology is perceived as more capable and personalization isn’t necessary.

“Where work is highly personalized, identity-laden, or creative, employees want a human in the loop,” explains Jackson G. Lu, a professor at MIT Sloan School of Management who led the research. This explains why game developers—whose work is inherently creative and personal—might resist AI implementation more strongly than workers in other sectors.

Leadership’s Perspective: Survival and Efficiency

EA executives view AI adoption as essential to the company’s future. “AI in its different forms has always been central to this creative journey,” CEO Andrew Wilson stated at a 2024 Investor Day event. “This remarkable technology is not merely a buzzword for us. It’s the very core of our business.”

The company’s financial pressures underscore this urgency. In the fiscal year ending June 30, 2025, EA’s net income fell 9.4%, with a dramatic 28% drop in the final quarter. Against this backdrop, AI represents both a potential cost-saving measure and a competitive necessity.

In its annual SEC filing, EA acknowledged the risks of its AI strategy, noting that “social and ethical issues” could cause “legal and reputational harm” if not managed appropriately. This admission highlights the delicate balance the company must strike between technological advancement and workforce management.

Bridging the Divide

Experts suggest that successful AI implementation requires a more nuanced approach than top-down mandates. Professor Lu recommends starting with tasks where AI clearly outperforms humans and personalization is unnecessary, such as numerical estimation and forecasting. Gradually incorporating AI into more complex domains while maintaining human oversight can build acceptance over time.

“Get the fit right,” says Lu, “and even AI skeptics become power users.” However, this gradual approach conflicts with the urgent timeline many executives, including those at EA, appear to be following., as earlier coverage

The Broader Corporate Landscape

Electronic Arts’ situation reflects a wider corporate trend. According to Bain & Company, average corporate spending on AI roughly doubled in 2024 to $10.3 million. Surveys reveal a stark divide in adoption rates—87% of executives use AI daily compared to just 27% of employees. Similarly, while 92% of C-suite leaders expect AI to boost productivity, 40% of employees blame it for increasing their workloads.

As Peter Cappelli, professor of management at Wharton, notes: “Don’t expect your employees to jump up and down at the opportunity to work themselves out of a job.” This fundamental tension between executive optimism and employee apprehension continues to define the corporate AI landscape.

The Path Forward

The resolution of EA’s AI divide may signal broader trends in creative industries. With consumer spending on games projected to grow 4.6% to $196.4 billion in 2025, the industry’s direction will influence how other creative sectors approach AI integration. The challenge remains balancing efficiency gains with preserving the human creativity that built these industries—a balance that current implementation strategies have yet to achieve.

As one EA employee summarized: “There’s a fundamental lack of trust that AI will benefit anyone but shareholders.” Until companies address this trust deficit, the divide between AI advocates and skeptics will likely continue to widen.

References & Further Reading

This article draws from multiple authoritative sources. For more information, please consult:

• https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fbul0000477

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