Square Enix, one of Japan’s biggest gaming publishers, is partnering up with Google to create a QA-testing AI that’ll automate and speed up quality control and assurance in video game development, leaving QA testers next on the chopping block after AI encroached so heavily on artists and programmers within gaming and other global industries. As Automaton writes, Square Enix has been making heavy use of Google’s chief AI, Gemini, to hasten its QA testing, with the company confirming this shift toward using more AI in game development during the Google Cloud Next Tokyo ’26 event last week. The AI can apparently play entire games since it can “analyze the screen [and] understand the situation in-game” and thus use in-game controls. A video showcasing this was reportedly shown at the event, though I’ve had a tough time finding it. Square is known for its Final Fantasy franchise, now with AI in tow. Image via Square Enix Square’s leadership explained that chatting with an AI wasn’t ever part of their vision, since they wanted to employ “an AI that had the ability to listen to the game’s sounds, observe the intricate changes happening on-screen and have full understanding of the situation.” Square Enix developers have experienced a significant workload increase over the last few years, Automaton writes, which seems to have driven this pivot toward using more AI. This will in turn, Square Enix claims, help developers focus on creative tasks and lighten the burden of performing the most tedious tasks. This could make sense in theory, with QA revolving a lot around simply holding down a movement button and incessantly doing the same thing over and over again, but I have a feeling it’s just corporate speech that’s hiding the truth of the matter: AI makes things cheaper and faster, never necessarily better. As Automaton further points out, Square Enix has received backing from the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to develop an automated, AI-powered QA development platform, meaning it now has full institutional support to go hand over fist for this. AI, as I see it, simply robs any industry of human creativity, which is a fundamental aspect of so many different industries and not just art. Sure, QA is boring and tedious, but I have a feeling that AI’s are going to start overlooking so many things in it, especially on a micro level, that we’re going to end up with far worse launch experiences than before. Furthermore, odds are that AI will hallucinate so much that fixing all of its messes will end up being more tedious and challenging, and thus create more hard work for the developers whom it was supposed to help. We’re all worse for it, but these corporate giants, backed by actual governments, could not care less. Destructoid is headed to gamescom 2026. Subscribe to the Destructoid Checkpoint newsletter for daily live updates from the biggest gaming show outside the US. The post After programmers and artists, QA testers are next: Google’s new AI can play and test in-development games, and some publishers are all over it appeared first on Destructoid.