Steam AI Disclosures Hit 49.9% of New Games in October 2026

AI is now part of the typical Steam release. An independent analysis shared on Reddit found that 49.9 percent of games launched on Steam in October 2026 carried an AI disclosure, up from 26.4 percent in October 2025 and just 1.7 percent in January 2024. Outlook Respawn reported the figures on November 3. This is a community analysis of Steam's public data, not an official Valve statistic.

Quick summary

• Dataset: 63,596 games released between January 2024 and October 2026.
• Annual share with AI disclosure: 13.2% (2024), 24% (2025), 40.1% (2026 so far).
• Artwork is the most common use at 63% of disclosures.
• Games with disclosures averaged 77% positive reviews versus 83% without (titles with 50+ reviews).

How fast has AI use grown on Steam?

Games are counted by release month even if the developer added the disclosure later, according to the analysis (by Reddit user u/ploz).

Who is disclosing AI use the most?

Small and prolific developers. Among 2026 releases, 47% of games with fewer than 10 reviews disclosed AI use, compared with 14% of games with 1,000 or more reviews. Developers who released 10 or more games reported AI use in 68% of their titles, against 37% for developers with a single release. Big hits are far less likely to disclose, which suggests AI is concentrated in low-budget releases.

What is AI being used for in games?

• Artwork: 63%
• Text and translations: 30%
• Store pages and marketing: 26%
• Music: 21%
• Code: 16%
• Voices: 7%
• AI-generated content during gameplay: 3%

Another 8% used AI only for store pages. The code figure is probably an undercount: Valve's January 2026 revision excludes behind-the-scenes development tools from the disclosure requirement, so everyday coding assistants often go unreported.

Why are developers turning to AI?

Cost is a big driver. One developer quoted in the discussion estimated localisation costs of roughly $1,000-$2,000 for Simplified Chinese and about $1,000 per extra language, and chose not to use AI translation over quality and review worries. AI is spreading beyond Steam too: Outlook Respawn notes that over 80% of Roblox's top 100 games by hours engaged used AI tools. For more on how AI is changing the PC stack, see our Windows AI PC roadmap leak.

Do AI-disclosed games review worse?

Slightly. Among titles with at least 50 reviews, games with an AI disclosure averaged 77% positive reviews against 83% for those without. That is a correlation: disclosing games are also more often small-studio releases, so AI use alone may not explain the gap.

What does it mean for players?

Expect more labels on store pages, and check them if you care about AI art or voices. The disclosure is self-reported, so it only shows what developers choose to say. Meanwhile, hardware stats show what players actually run: see the October 2026 Steam Hardware Survey, and check free game deals before buying unknown titles.

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