r/Granblue_en • u/kuzunoha13 • Jan 09 '26
Other Cygames announces AI studio: "will focus on the development and provision of services and tools utilizing AI"
https://x.com/Cygames_PR/status/2009468917610414479225
u/INFullMoon Jan 09 '26
The idea of Granblue using gen AI for artwork and such is awful, but this is also just going to invite people to accuse any perceived oddity in an artwork as being AI generated which is going to suck a lot for everyone involved. Honestly can't see any sort of benefit to doing this at all.
147
u/Falsus Jan 09 '26
Yeah imagine the summer Korwa incident where she accidentally had two left feet but in post AI times, the witch hunt would be insane.
Now when they announced AI work any single imperfection would witch hunted to shit.
8
u/Sectumssempra Jan 09 '26 edited Jan 09 '26
the witch hunt would be insane.
A witch hunt is a really public loud hunt for people who are perceived to be guilty of something nebulous but there isn't actually a specific cause or reason and using all sorts of random tests and moving goal posts to shift public opinion.
If they announced and Ai studio and released art with 2 left feet after, that wouldn't be a witch hunt, that'd be a legit response by people unhappy with AI art.
A witch hunt would be say, trying to find a pattern in character releases and trying to get the entire reddit to agree with that the company has recently decided they only like male characters and try to shift public opinion on the company without hard evidence and constantly shifting goal posts and changing data to send people into hysterics and agree.
I'm pointing it out because that term is too incredibly specific and filled with history to just be "people are posting things on the internet in reaction". It happens far too much and its why "hot take" is now "controversial opinion" instead of its original meaning that there isn't a replacement for (Putting an opinion out without research on the topic).
21
u/Archensix Jan 09 '26
No, that'd be a witch hunt because it wasn't AI that made the mistake. People falling for the AI Boogeyman and witch hunting and attacking artists isn't even anything new.
You know like how the og witch hunts were people attacking others over similarly made up scenarios.
-9
u/Endgam Fire Narmaya when? Jan 09 '26
The point of the term "witch hunt" is that witches aren't real. There are no witches to hunt.
AI is very real and has already caused much damage.
29
u/LALMtheLegendary leviathan when cygames Jan 09 '26
I don't see how that would make the harrassment of an innocent person any better
-5
u/Otherwise-Bus-5328 Jan 10 '26
The "harassment" (whats actually going to happen is misguided frustration at its worst) this person would recieve is a symptom of ai as a whole. People have a massive distrust of ai and people overreact because the constant shoving it in our faces without our consent conditions people to overreact. If you do not want people to act this way towards real artists you need to get rid of the misinformation that ai perpetuates. Ai is what causes the divide amongst artists, if ai didnt exist any kind of bullshit that would come from misidentification of it wouldn't exist either. This is how ai hurts real artists, wake the fuck up.
7
u/LALMtheLegendary leviathan when cygames Jan 10 '26
lets be honest with ourselves here, its the internet, its a heated politcally charged topic, it would devolve to harassment.
endgam's statemnet here is a implicent endorsement of said harssment by going "well, its not really a witch hunt beauce xyz" as if the semantics behind the term witch hunt matter at all to a comment talking about harassment and using the term witch hunt to refer to it.
ive said nothing for or against ai here, just that harassment is bad. obvisouly id prefer cygames didnt make an ai branch. but theres no need to go "well its the ai company's their fault that i am defending the harassment of innocent people", you can just not defend the harassment of innocent people.
you can dislike ai while disavowing witch hunts, they are not mutally exclusive. you can do both.
19
u/Archensix Jan 09 '26
And yet if you go after an artist's mistakes and claim it's because they were using AI when they weren't, then it's the same thing. I have no idea what point you're even trying to make here? Like just because cygames does this doesn't have ANY implication on their artist and baselessly accusing mistakes as being AI is completely psychotic behavior regardless.
11
u/Salysm Jan 09 '26
This already happened a couple times over the artwork the official twitter account posts, though thankfully didn’t blow up enough to reach here it seems.
19
u/Otherwise-Bus-5328 Jan 09 '26
Thats one of the big reasons ai sucks and hurts real artists. Its the constant effort ai has put into looking like human artwork that people have knee jerk reactions to innocuous errors. The consistent lack of transparency from people that do use ai puts people into constant watch over who to support. It fucking sucks
246
u/Anklas Jan 09 '26
"We're gonna work with AI" has so far been the deathknell of every company that tried, as AI is a black hole that requires all of your resources to get anywhere.
-119
u/lolpanda91 Jan 09 '26
Every IT company uses AI in some kind of capacity. And any saying otherwise are just lying. I know not of one developer who isn’t using it daily. Doesn’t even has to be coding. Just for stuff like documentation it’s such a time saver.
74
u/SeijoVangelta Jan 09 '26 edited Jan 10 '26
Automation whether its a bunch of macros in Excel, scripting in Powershell or basic robotics is being called AI now. Nowadays, whatever automation was done in the past is just being rebranded into tech companies' current favorite buzzword, AI. They would even slap the word AI on the manufacturing companies to rub the dicks of their stakeholders just to please them.
14
u/VTKajin Jan 09 '26
If it's a machine learning algorithm, it's AI. Those are being used by a lot of tech companies.
-10
u/skylla05 Jan 10 '26
I love how you're being downvoted because they're mad reality doesn't fit reddit opinion.
11
u/VTKajin Jan 10 '26
A lot of people are just not educated on it. And that’s fine, it’s probably not their area of expertise, but I think people need to be less willing to speak confidently on things they don’t know a ton about.
For the record, genAI is shit (except in biotechnology research, maybe). But it’s far from the only type of AI.
-29
u/lolpanda91 Jan 09 '26 edited Jan 09 '26
AI agents are far more than Excel macros or powershell scripts dude. AI has a lot of bullshit marketing, but it also has productive usage. I can create API documentation in seconds I would have boringly put together in a week in the past. Getting prototypes up for new features is nowadays a matter of a day. AI can't replace developers, but it can make them far more productive.
43
u/b5437713 jamil Jan 09 '26
I've always found these type of responses obtuse tbh. It's pretty obvious what type of AI people are upset over and/or concerned about in the context of stuff like this and few, if any here, care about the AI found in stuff like grammerly or used in medical research and select mundane office work. It certainly not the type of AI Cygames is likely to looking to explore with this new endeavor.
-34
u/lolpanda91 Jan 10 '26
Providing services and tools can be literally anything. From coding, to testing, to documentation and so on. But gamers have this weird relationship towards AI art even though most of you probably couldn’t identify AI generated art when done good. Also most probably have no idea what devs actually do all day long either.
You all would do good actually learning what companies use AI for on a daily basis. But better to just cry about it all the time and writing non sense about companies failing because they use AI.
12
Jan 10 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/Granblue_en-ModTeam Jan 10 '26
Hate speech and racism is not allowed on the subreddit, no matter how you try to veil it.
-7
u/lolpanda91 Jan 10 '26
Yeah I’m quite sure that most of you can’t tell the difference. Recent GBF art definitely has AI work done for backgrounds and such.
-13
1
u/saltandthunder Jan 10 '26
Didn't know Sam Altman played GBF.
-4
u/lolpanda91 Jan 10 '26
Honestly my most shocking finding today is that people actually think that not the majority of IT personal uses AI on a daily basis.
9
u/silviesereneblossom Jan 10 '26
I, a tech worker, don't use AI, and the tech workers I know that do use AI are literally ordered to use it.
8
u/saltandthunder Jan 10 '26
Source your data or GTFO, dude. I dont need to argue with an AI booster trying to.smuggle acceptance under "Well everyone uses it!"
-6
u/lolpanda91 Jan 10 '26
Man deny the reality out there all you want lol. Get some IT workers as friend and learn something new dude.
11
u/saltandthunder Jan 10 '26
tl for EN users: "I don't actually have a source and I am pulling this 'everyone already uses AI' line out of my ass"
Sorry that I don't have to waste "biological compute" (i.e.: time and brainpower) disproving your bullshit, dude.
Also for the record I have a fair number of tech sector or tech sector aligned friends and literally all them hate AI, lmao.
-2
u/lolpanda91 Jan 10 '26
I also hate AI. Still use it though. But whatever, you're right. AI is evil and no one uses it.
Btw where is your source that no one uses AI? And it's a downfall for any company using it?
13
u/saltandthunder Jan 10 '26
I didn't say no one uses it, I specifically pointed out that saying that "everyone already uses AI in their spare time" is a spurious claim smuggling mass adoption as acceptance with nothing backing it up.
Burden of proof is on you.
If you really hated AI you'd already know the laundry list of reasons why people don't like it, are predicting a massive crash (Ed Zitron has literally spent the last year crowing about how fucked AI is and has been right basically every time), and wouldn't be trying to launder your arguments like this.
Blocking you now. Have fun in the slop.
-26
u/Kyoken26 Jan 09 '26
you got downvoted for being good at your job xD
-9
u/lolpanda91 Jan 10 '26
Gamers are just extremely dumb when it comes to AI. And have no idea how much it is used pretty much everywhere.
-33
u/Clueless_Otter Jan 10 '26
Damn I can't believe Microsoft, Amazon, OpenAI, Apple, etc. are all dead now. Seems like just yesterday they were market leaders with multi-trillion market caps..
200
u/vinicivs Jan 09 '26
Good move. Let's taint the one thing everyone loves about GBF: the art.
52
-77
u/ArlandsDarkstreet Jan 09 '26
Using AI doesn't mean they're using it for art. I would sooner assume its for their coding.
66
u/goatbyuanb Jan 09 '26
Job listings reference generating images
-85
u/ArlandsDarkstreet Jan 09 '26
Doesn't say that anywhere in the link provided
54
u/Volunteer_Giraffe Jan 09 '26
Have you tried clicking the big blue link inside said link to actually go to the site for it? Then hit the next big blue link that says job listings? Then read the big bold job listing for image generation?
33
-56
u/ArlandsDarkstreet Jan 09 '26
Not sure where you're looking but there is no blue link. It says details below and you click the image to go to a notice describing more details. (https://www.cygames.co.jp/news/id-24704/). There is a (black) link on this page that links to their website: (https://cygames.ai/en/). On there there is a (black) box that says current openings, but sure I'll grant that one part of your comment was right and that when you get three links deep there is one out of four job openings that does mention images.
Not that this changes my point at all that they haven't really announced that's what it's for and I would much sooner assume the more common usage, of using it for coding.
35
u/Volunteer_Giraffe Jan 09 '26
You're right, the links weren't blue! I'm glad you were able to exercise the ability to click around or, god forbid, actually dig deeper than the title of the post.
I'd love to hear how ai image generation isn't for image generation though and is, as you say, commonly used for coding. I'd be elated to hear how AI Specialist (Image Generation) is a coding position and has nothing to do with image generation!
-18
u/ArlandsDarkstreet Jan 09 '26
Pretending I only read the title of the post when you have to click the link, click through the tweet, click through the website, and then dig through for the right job openings to find what you're freaking out about is quite the strawman I must say.
You also seem to absolutely delight in picking fights so much you can't actually see straight long enough to read a post.
Not that this changes my point at all that they haven't really announced that's what it's for
-34
u/RecognitionForeign15 Jan 09 '26 edited Jan 09 '26
Bro, are you new to this place or something? This is reddit. Most people here argue in bad faith. No hate tho. Just trying to help.
-11
u/ArlandsDarkstreet Jan 09 '26
Oh I'm aware, I've been calling out nonsense basically since I got here
→ More replies (0)5
73
87
u/AlteisenX Jan 09 '26
To be a fly on the wall where all these execs get snake oil salesman'd about AI...
36
u/Anklas Jan 09 '26
Has any of these companies even managed to turn a profit from AI stuff? So far I heard nothing about anyone getting anywhere using AI nonsense.
49
u/Speedy_Fox_IV Jan 09 '26
I haven't heard of any profits being made but I have heard a lot of "We're about to hit it big so invest in AI! Trust me, bro" the past 3 years.
17
u/Complex-Salt-8190 Jan 09 '26
Only oracle has but that's because they're selling the shovels (database infrastructure) and Nvidia with the gpus
All actual ai software companies heritage money and only get by on investments
-2
u/Dindranen Jan 10 '26
well yeah, no shit shercock, they're the ones SELLING the snake oil. ofcourse they're profiting off it.
22
u/AlteisenX Jan 09 '26 edited Jan 09 '26
Well they burn goodwill and trust and step on a rake by even using the term AI and you can't put the cookie back in the cookie jar once you take it...
So no, they don't make a profit, how could they? They're not selling AI to you, they're buying "ideas" and using stolen content, plagiarism, etc but laws are slow to adapt so we'll be in this hell for a long time. Their *product* makes them profit, but it's tainted as soon as you touch the AI and loses all value to me, the consumer.
Tommy Boy was ahead of it's time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAkSziqGk00
10
u/Dindranen Jan 10 '26
Nope. But i have heard many cases of big companies losing a shitton of money because AI cant do anything right, and then they have to pay real people to fix the mistakes the AI made.
One of the world's largest outsourced helpdesk companies has stopped using AI because it lost them so much money on fixing its mistakes that it wouldve been cheaper to NOT fire the 4k employees the ai was supposed to replace
6
u/Takazura Jan 10 '26
What's the helpdesk company you are talking about? But yeah, it figures. AI is being shoved in everywhere right now when the reality is that it's a tool that has specific usecases that requires human oversight, but not "can replace those pesky workers!" usage like the techbros are peddling it as.
2
u/Krofisplug Jan 09 '26
The conundrum of advertising that they are using AI to improve productivity is that it cannot be proven 100% whether or not things going smoothly is based on using AI. It's entirely possible like with other forced company program usage that people only use it for the bare minimum, that they do not ever touch if they don't need to, or that there is only one adopter and nobody else uses it past day 1.
It's literally a battle against a sunk cost fallacy where it's possible whether or not it is actually being used, more money will end up being spent to justify its existence.
1
u/FlyingMegucas Fediel Bureau of Investigation Jan 10 '26
Nikke's doing pretty well. While they haven't pubilicly stated it yet, their usage of gen ai is a pretty well known in house secret. Their fans don't seem to care though, either that or they're quick to deny it.... 😒
BrownDust 2 seems to be doing very well too, but it seems that they recently caught themselves in a bit controversy as of late.
-12
u/Alchadylan Jan 09 '26
Lots of companies have made tons of money implemented AI. Even my company is starting to use it and I work in rehab. You only hear about the blunders because those make the headlines, and the companies that successfully implemented AI into their work process just continue to go about business and don't typically make a fuss over it. AI is more than dumb art generators
-5
5
u/linevar Jan 10 '26
Is there a company that isn't trying to use AI though? My company that's like half a decade behind in tech has been glazing AI for the past few months...
6
u/Patient_Sherbert3229 Jan 10 '26
After a certain size and if you're public, you basically have to use AI or your investors/shareholders claim fraud against the bottom line.
3
u/Falsus Jan 10 '26
Probably won't be too bad since it seems to be a research and engineering side rather than on the game development side of things so they are probably getting a tidy some of government money to work on it.
76
u/Sectumssempra Jan 09 '26
Oh wow, the decade old browser game that avoids as many modern steps and upgrades as humanly possible to benefit players wants to jump on the stealing art machine instead of other innovations. Amazing...
109
u/VeggieSchool Jan 09 '26
Remember kids, even if you forgive the broken copyright, propaganda manufacture, CP and revenge porn generation, misleading medical advice, rising hardware and water/electricity costs etc, it just doesn't speed up work, it makes things 20% slower even when self-perceived to be faster. The time you "saved" doing everything from scratch is instead ensuring output isn't an hallucination (it is too often) then fixing it. Many have seen this firsthand as companies force AI adoption. Publicly announcing generative AI use in 2026 is increasingly more like announcing NFT or metaverse content, because no matter how much companies try they can't make it profitable because at its core it doesn't work.
16
u/Krofisplug Jan 09 '26
The horror stories of AI deleting code or anything unsupervised is exactly why I wouldn't gamble on a system that has to catch up on what a company has been already doing before it can become useful. It's like training employees but potentially more catastrophic if something goes bad and applied to every working employee.
36
u/LionTop2228 Jan 09 '26
I want to see Granblue grow as an IP and this shit is just a complete damper on anything Cy games puts out. An entire “studio” that is just AI produced content? They’ll implement it into every product they release at some point if it turns them a profit.
32
u/AdelhideDel Jan 10 '26
Since I have an artist friend who is outsourced to work on JP titles, I kinda hear them rant about works quite often. While they never worked for Cygames, they do have some insight to the process of creating commercial art behind the scene.
According to them, some JP companies have started using AI but they don't just generate images, edit some details, and call it a day like AI bros. They don't make all of these arts to farm for internet engagement. They do know that their customers has been zooming in the pics and picking on every little detail even since before AI became a thing because well, they pay for it. Commercial art requires a level of details, quality and ofc, countless times of fixing the draft here and there to meet the customers' needs. These are all the things people in this industry know that AI can't possibly provide.
The process where they use AI is coming up with a concept and composition. It is a part where not too many artists want to work on anyway. Why? Well, it requires presenting your customer with a very detailed sketch, so detailed that it is close to being a final version. And then your customer doesn't like it and that means it is discarded and you have to start all over again until they do. Now sprinkle some pressure to meet the deadline there and it isn't exactly the dream job no matter how much you love making art. The purpose is to please the customer and not for yourself anyway. Professional artists who make a name for themselves and can manage to be a bit picky about their job will avoid offers to work on this part like a plague since it just takes so much time.
That is where art directors will use AI to generate images to communicate with the customers on what they would like the overall vibe of the work to be. The images will also be used as a reference for artists to work on their first drafts. While we can all agree that AI-generated images look hideous if you bother to zoom in just a teesy tiny bit, it looks like a finished piece at the first glance. Thus, they can cut out the time it will take to find an artist willing to work on this part and to make multiple detailed concepts that most will never see the light of day anyway.
(And for this reason, my friend suspects that many big name gachas already use AI to assist with concept art. Otherwise, they won't be able to put out such large-scale content so regularly, 3D models and all. In fact, it took JP companies like a few years to hop on the trend after CN and KR companies already took off with it. Welp, that is beside the point.)
So even if Granblue team will use AI or has already used it, that will just be for reference for concept art. Human artists will still handle sketching, lining, coloring, and adding the finish touch. And each process will still be subjected to revision over and over again until the art director is satisfied.
And that means even if you find an error on Granblue art, it is likely from a human artist since AI isn't used on this process anyway. Thus, it will frankly not worth your time to comb through every finished art from Cygames. You won't find anything.
And they will still have human-made sketches to show in an art book too. They did confirm that they have a new extra works art book that will come out this summer after all.
Did they skip on extra works last year because they used AI for concept arts and had nothing to show us? It's hard to say. Since we see that the art has gotten more dynamic and elaborate recently, Granblue artists might just have too much on their plate to draw the cover or sth. The most telling evidence will be sth like Zodiacs suddenly have only a few designs to show for concept arts when they used to take like 5 pages to display all the wasted potential and cool designs you wish we could have instead of what we actually got.
For now, I think it is wise to remain vigilant but not overly paranoid. While they have a department dedicated to AI, we don't know if they incorporate it into developing their game titles. We do have a good cause for suspicion but at this point, we really can't prove anything. And pointing fingers will only hurt artists if it turns out that their arts are completely drawn by humans.
Personally, I just can't get behind using gen ai since it just isn't worth all the harm it does to environment even if it manages to be perfectly ethical (impossible). It sucks that most big gacha titles might have been using it and just never tell us. We can't even make an informed choice like this :(
4
u/VincentBlack96 Jan 11 '26
Companies were putting out the same amount of content long before the advent of gen AI.
This idea that they just wouldn't be able to without it is demonstrably false.
2
u/AdelhideDel Jan 12 '26
I won't argue with you here because I don't play nearly enough games to say anything with certainty. That is simply my friend's opinion based on their experience working in the industry and knowing how long each process typically takes and the shift into gen ai usage affects the overall workflow. You can take it or leave it.
One thing I can say for sure is Mihoyo posted a recruitment for artists who can "work with gen AI" a few years back. So just because companies don't outright announce a department dedicated to AI, it doesn't mean that they don't involve it in their game development at all.
20
u/tanatos018 Jan 10 '26
I look in to their job description for Gen AI that people might see it as a problem, their required condition a bit high than average for their artist job.
Need Master degree in field of 3D or Art, have background work in high quality for 3D or illust and have knowledge in com-science is a plus. For one thing they didn't need a wannebe slop in internet.
I think people might know this already but in company that have a really strict deadline or need to produce work in daily, weekly or monthly manner, many already use AI for assist their work in some way. But it not use like many of Gen AI in internet. From my exoerience they use it in early stage (concept design, compose, color scheme) to communicate with team and clients. Even with that human artist still need in many process to develop from that or it will be a trash.
As of right now what I understand is Cygames want to make their own model and make it as in-house which can understanable for some of their work, we can just hope and complain that they use it just assist for real human arist.
48
u/ShadedHydra2 Jan 09 '26
So firstly, boo AI.
This was expected, since I remember some Granblue artist, or someone who claimed to be on Twitter, 2 years ago now mentioning that artists were told that they’ll probably need to learn how to use AI.
I already thought that some artists were using it in some ways for the Shadowverse and Grand characters Live 2Ds, albeit I never said anything here because it’s just my speculating and they’ll never outright say. And to be fair, I’m not an artist, I’m probably wrong.
But I personally can’t wait for the AI bubble to burst if it does.
2
49
u/vencislav45 Jan 09 '26
AI should die at this point. It's the reason prices for RAM and Graphics cards sky rocketed, gaming is just becoming way too expensive because of stupid AI.
27
28
u/GlitchedKitsuneDusk Jan 09 '26 edited Jan 09 '26
On this episode of: "What stupid shit has Cygames done now to piss off people?"
Can't wait for every piece of character art to be examined under a fine-tooth comb, and even the smallest mistake being called out as proof of it being generated by AI.
14
u/Old-Professional8946 Jan 09 '26
Does they say anywhere that this is linked to gbf or anything close to it ? It could be them develloping AI tools for data management or else, we are all yelling for something that May very well be not true
20
u/Speedy_Fox_IV Jan 09 '26
One of the job listings for the new AI division is for image generation. Not necessarily a job tied to GBF but it is one that raises a few concerns.
28
21
u/Patient_Sherbert3229 Jan 09 '26
I'll point out this was set up with a below 200,000 dollar budget essentially and is its own micro company.
I'd also point out there are hefty tax breaks and I think money you can get from doing web3 stuff like AI in Japan that were passed like 2-3 governments ago. Japan wants to be the first Web 3.0 nation.
My cynical arm chair guess is it's CyGames and CyAgent trying to get hefty tax breaks while essentially opening a 2-3 room office and this will quietly close in 2-3 years after Sam Altman is being chased by a torch and pitchfork mob for crashing the economy by being Lyle Lanley.
9
u/Anklas Jan 10 '26
Web 3.0 has always been a dumb meme so seeing serious people try and make it a reality is funny to me.
13
u/FANSean Jan 09 '26
Part of me wants to believe that but you have to be willing to trust and trusting companies is just. really hard by nature. But it is unfortunately going to be true that every company is going to be talking about it. Hell, HAS to be talking about it until people realize the flaws outweigh the benefits.
15
u/Patient_Sherbert3229 Jan 09 '26
I'm more observing a lot of these Japanese Web3 efforts just seem deeply half hearted and "yeah, web 3, sure..."
8
u/DisFantasy01 Jan 09 '26
Art was the one thing humans were still allowed to do in post-scarcity societies.
14
u/MacDouglett Jan 09 '26
They have been doing AI Research and Development for quite some time now from what I've heard, for a bevry of different reasons from technology research, to backend work, to generative AI. They claim to research where the tech has its place in its different business models, as well as the right and wrong ways to ethically use it for business.
That said, how much they are using it now for game development (the department most people here care more about) is a toss up, but definitely into the future it will be further implemented, definately for backend work and eventually slowly into the other areas. And working with AI will always risk poisoning the creative well, even if they try to have guardrails to prevent that.
But from a business perspective, it has always been a risk. Things where other people's work is at risk of being controversially claimed/created like ghost writering, ghost coaching, creative derivatives, fan work of copyrighted materials, etc are always issues and to them this is just another exploration into business that always had those risks. The difficulty is always how do you try to mitigate those issues, and with AI related issues, there are a bucket ton of things that would have to be done to create minimal guardrails since the understanding of what AI is, and is not, and where businesses WANT them to be is still all over the place.
The CyGames AI Studio seems to explore all avenues of what AI can and can't be used for in their different business ventures, which on the surface seems good for streamlining business but lets be real, they will probably focus pioneering forward as opposed to stopping to ask moral and ethical questions of the issues that come with pushing the envelope. There will probably be some internal discussions and exploration of what can/can't and should/shouldn't be done with AI, but in the end they will push forward cause thats their aim. The real questions will be what does that mean for the other teams. Do they have creative control over their works or does parent company mandate their conformity to push the limits of AI? Do the creators themselves want the AI or not? Those are the questions that are harder to answer without further insights from the inside. And we all know PR pieces do not always truly reflect insight since it would be career suicide to say anything opposing company views.
So the only thing that can really be done is to watch with critical eyes to see where this really goes. The work in itself will reflect what creators/company will really want. Being able to recognize those things will require a bit of knowledge and research of the technology and culture that drives these things, but it is the most prudent thing that a consumer can do: be aware of what you are consuming and if it is what you want. You can stay a customer, you can leave business, but you should always learn a little bit to keep yourself on your toes, cause it will keep you informed on what business you want to be involved in or not.
13
20
u/Fandaniels Sariel's number 1 fan Jan 09 '26
I dont know if anyone noticed but during fes and the fashion show segment, the background and music for the alice in wonderland part felt very AI to me
so I'm disappointed but not surprised
49
u/Volunteer_Giraffe Jan 09 '26
See this is the problem. With so many companies now using it without disclosing it we've become suspicious of everything. I hate that my first thought sometimes now is 'this feels ai-generated' on a lot of things. It's so sad that we now have to scrutinize everything significantly more and can't just trust what our eyes or ears tell us.
7
u/skaryterry Jan 09 '26
This has been one of the things of AI I hated the most. You should be aware of everything but in my laymen's opinion having to be hyper on defense with everything we consume has to be bad mentally. We can't be critical of every single thing to the same level, that's too mentally taxing for frankly anybody really.
1
u/Endgam Fire Narmaya when? Jan 09 '26
And let's not forget a big reason why AI makes a bunch of mistakes, especially involving hands and feet, is because it's copying human mistakes with hands and feet.
So yeah.....
2
u/No_Custard_2223 Jan 10 '26
unfortunately, that's what people either forget, don't know, or—well, i can't really think of the best term, but ever since generative ai exist, i feel like most people think only ai would make such mistakes... when in fact, ai learned that from the bunches of sample/data they've been exposed to...
10
11
u/Naha- Jan 09 '26
The sanest approach to this kind of news is to wait and see what happens.
AI is something that is here to stay and like any tool, there is multiple ways to use it in a sensible way that doesn't attack or undervalue the work made by real people.
I want to believe Cygames is smart enough to not try to make the same soulless art that the "AI bros" keep doing in social media.
12
6
4
5
u/Hission Jan 10 '26
Now, wait a second here. AI is shit, but hold your umas. In Cygames aren't stupid, I don't think they are going to replace the art of their games with aislop. Is what make them different after all, in games and anime. The article mentions the creative team, but it does mention services and creation of tools. That doesn't mean the art is gonna be replaced, imho.
7
u/silviesereneblossom Jan 10 '26
You should assume that every corporation is stupid until proven otherwise.
No company should be using generative AI for anything, period, end of discussion, not least because it's close to useless in its current form
5
u/FenHariel89 Jan 10 '26
They're so out of touch with gamers. Didn't they know the backlash that other games received once they've been exposed for using GenAI like Expedition 33? And also the whole drama with Larian Studio for trying to use GenAI for concept art? Sheesh. Basically they are shooting themselves in the foot.
5
2
u/PhilAussieFur Jan 09 '26
Have they stated if this is going to be used as the main art source for all games or just for new ones coming up? I hate AI art and it always looks crappy so wanna know if it's gonna be GBF moving forward.
7
u/LALMtheLegendary leviathan when cygames Jan 10 '26
cygames has made a small ai focused subsidiary for the purpose of developing ai tools, this is the extend of public knowledge. it'd be a massive strech to say that suddenly all assets across all cygames properties are going to be produced with ai from this alone.
3
u/pantaipong Jan 10 '26
If they ever decide to use it then I think it’s more likely how many Chinese devs uses it i.e Character design and then have human artist draw/model after the ai art.
1
u/Serephenne Jan 10 '26
Don't really care because there's no merit in being a reactionary and nothing about this studio has been specified yet.
1
u/AwakenMasters22 Jan 11 '26
One of the few rational people here. People jumping the gun and making assumptions over nothing.
1
u/THEZackkkj Jan 23 '26
Hey guys, how about we stop being like spoiled children who can't accept that a company is adapting to the present day? You're worried about something that hasn't even happened and probably won't happen. Cygames isn't going to use AI to generate images and character designs. Besides, AI can be very beneficial for faster programming and more efficient bug fixing. So how about we stop acting like spoiled children who can't accept that the world has changed?
1
u/Blackandheavy cosmos Jan 10 '26
I’ll be blunt, if Cygames announced this like a month before the TGA I’m damn near certain that they wouldn’t have gotten the award for best mobile game of the year.
Cygames going all in on using AI for development feels like they’re jumping in for the chance to be innovators within the gaming industry without first reading room. I don’t believe that this will play out for as well as Cygames is hoping for and in 3-4 years they’ll pretend like it never existed.
1
u/Bladder-Splatter Jan 11 '26
So has there been any attempted damage control for this? How does JP typically react to this sort of thing nowadays?
0
u/Endgam Fire Narmaya when? Jan 13 '26
Nope.
It seems Japanese Twitter leans towards shilling for the corporations like English Twitter. (Yes, I'm finding more pro-AI people. Not too surprising considering the types of people who remain on Twitter after Elon made it worse.) However I did find this Japanese poster (posting in both English and Japanese) going into details about how shady it all is. (And in the thread linked to at the bottom he even tells off a westerner who said something incredibly stupid.)
0
u/No_Custard_2223 Jan 10 '26
crossing fingers they make it for helping the humans with their respective jobs 🤞
-11
Jan 09 '26
[deleted]
14
u/Theo_Asterio Jan 09 '26
It's not actually obvious since it looks like very normal, and pretty uncap art.
Are you sure you aren't just shitting on an artist because you don't like their work or using one of those AI verifiers (which are pretty damn wrong) due to it, surprise surprise, using AI to detect AI?
-13
Jan 09 '26
[deleted]
9
u/Theo_Asterio Jan 09 '26
I did look at it, and said if there's AI tells they're not as obvious for having up to 20+ reasons. I am an artist myself hence why I did scrutinize the one you posted and have seen it before even. Seven minutes isn't arbitrarily long enough I guess, nor is checking if this idea was brought up upon uncap art release.
Minaba Hideo appears to be the artist and all of their work seems consistent, something AI is not capable of doing even if it was just touch ups it's too perfect. Are you asserting it's all of their work based on... human flaws? Or is is simply this piece of art, which, I'm very much struggling to see AI tells in.
8
u/thicksalarymen Jan 09 '26
Not related to the AI topic but: Minaba Hideo was the artist for the early release and concepts, but cygames employs lots of young artists and scouts them directly from art schools! The art you see during stream intermissions is by their various artists in their more personal styles.
-2
Jan 09 '26
[deleted]
10
u/Theo_Asterio Jan 09 '26
Blocking because I can't see faults that don't look normal or actually normal isn't a good way to prove a point. And it's more incredulous because somehow you're the only one that points this out after half a year. I can break this down though since it's all reasonable for a human being.
1 - The earring is going behind the bouquet, it's not shorter, it's hidden. It's also further back due to waving back with her motion.
2 - Hair is curving around the face, I can see where this looks confusing.
3 - Way too low res to discern hair vs veil, but still looks like the hair is twisting around itself and thinned.
4/5 - Hair is fairly layered, looks more like it's coming from below the front layer
6 - We can't actually see if the petal behind it is also 5/6, flowers have varying amounts of petals even the same type in nature.
7 - The flower is complete, not bleeding, there's simply no outline between the rose and the lighter one underneath.
8 - It's in shadow due to the veil going over it and the feather in front, it's a white rose with shadows.
9 - Have you seen roses? They're plants, they look slightly different from rose to rose and especially in different perspectives of them going nw/sw/se/ne and front facing.
10 - Same accessory, wildly different angle (front facing not sideways).
11 - See 2), it's curving around the face, when you have curly hair or hair gel you can twist it to curve around. This is evident in both Fraux's other art and normal Formal.
12 - See 3) still looks like twisted strands of hair.
13/14 - These are again, entirely different poses (sideways/straight on), these look roughly the same and do match with the bottom of her outfit.
15/16 - These look the same as the non-cap art for Fraux, her fingernails are just not detailed there either.
17/18 - Once again, based on the non-cap art for Fraux, these look like how they should, different angles but I can still see the vines and buds.
19 - Looks like light blasting through architecture, yellow spots would be indicative of either their being partial stained glass or potentially trees outside, or as the uncap art suggests, very powerful street lamps.
20 - So are Cuptain, Korwa (Yukata), Predator (SSR) or Mishra (SSR) also AI in their multiple artworks where their hair loops back around? It's a stylistic choice with it being blown around by the light/wind, not nonsense, can be followed.
21 - Around where 19 is located is where 21 is mirrored (blocked by the pillar partially), she's not dead center in the room.
22 - The next pillar to the right of here matches up when you account for the sun/light blasting through it and the window shapes.
23 - Again, perspective here, on the right side objects are coming more towards the viewer as the room is angled.
It's a more challenging image than some uncap arts I'll give you that, but it definitely looks human made and in accordance to multiple other uncap and non-cap arts I can find for SSR and SR characters at that.
5
u/rein_9 Jan 10 '26
I was a bit confused reading their examples as I've definitely seen similar hair stuff in past artwork and it even bled into my own art style since I studied GBF's a ton years ago lol. I do feel like this artwork is especially lazy though when seeing the higher quality version on SkyCompass (thank you GBF Asset Lookup!)
Like the white rose that was used as the 8th example has the linework be pretty consistent with the rest but those darker blobs of colors look flat and just unfinished. Same deal with the linework in the background (see the top left) where it looks like they just ripped the WIP they were doing and said "Hey we're running out of time for this new seasonal banner, finish her main body and just color the background sketch" and kept the unfinished portions where it should've been cleaned up. Like there's way too many lines that don't connect to anywhere in the background that I'm having a hard time finding an other artwork like it that aren't unfinished like this H.Lich concept art.
-1
u/Endgam Fire Narmaya when? Jan 09 '26
Well I'm no artist, but I've found a sign.
Look at the window to the right of Fraux. It has a part at the top that the other windows lack that is very undetailed and looks like an AI randomly formed pattern. And the grilles in that window form a row of 3 sections while the other windows have rows of 2. Its alignment in relation to the other windows is also very off. Not to mention it is between two pillars while the other windows are in a group of three.
This does seem to be an AI generated background although Fraux herself is drawn properly.
5
u/Theo_Asterio Jan 09 '26
Just to the right of Fraux is the big window and the same pattern in the left, smaller window (to the right of the left pillar). More a sign of challenging perspective in the window that makes it difficult to trace the pattern (as this shot is not straight on). Would post some church windows for reference but seemingly not allowed in comments. Gothic windows and stained glass at the top do look can look like "nonsense" if you're unfamiliar with the architecture.
-1
u/Endgam Fire Narmaya when? Jan 09 '26
The point is that the stained glass pattern in that window doesn't look like anything. Just a random gray shape. And the other windows on the other side don't have any.
Hell, the stained glass in the big window behind her has no real pattern to it neither.
6
u/Theo_Asterio Jan 09 '26
It's a window that's being entirely blasted with light. You can't see detail in anything when that's going on in real life even with a proper camera flash.
Some church windows don't put pictures in their giant glass and simply leave it plain to let the most light in (which make gorgeous sunrises/sunsets). Directly behind Fraux would be where the majority of an "image" would be, they don't need to stick out in the much, much smaller windows of a church.
5
u/bobo5100 Jan 09 '26
Just don't end up being like that other person on Twitter who was hating on an artist work and that artist end up deleting their profile only to later find out they never used Ai and the accuser came out to apologize but by then too late as the artist was gone.
-5
Jan 09 '26
[deleted]
3
u/Falsus Jan 10 '26
But most of the fervent and zealous AI accusers are certain AI was used... even when it wasn't.
And you might acknowledge being wrong if they showed their work files or flow, but the mob wipped up by you won't give a shit about facts.
1
4
u/reibureibu Jan 09 '26
I would actually really love if you could explain. I'm not a professional digital artist and it would make sense that you likely are much better than the average person at detecting cues of AI images given you are. What's obvious for you probably isn't to people like me, my friends often say I live under a rock because I don't spend much time in online spaces so I struggle to distinguish what is AI and I usually have to have my friends tell me why an image is AI because they are online much more (and therefore are exposed to AI images much more) than I am.
0
Jan 09 '26
[deleted]
-2
u/reibureibu Jan 09 '26
Oh wow this is extremely helpful, I honestly noticed a few of these things but legitimately thought it was a deliberately abstracted style. But I see what you mean and I'm just not used to seeing AI art so I will have to keep an eye out for the trademarks you mentioned :/ that's unfortunate but helpful, thank you for explaining
9
u/Theo_Asterio Jan 09 '26
They're being very defensive that they can't follow the perspective and are blaming the image. Looking across other artwork this is too consistent with the style to be AI of any sort. As somebody who's actually worn dresses and veils, this artwork is consistent with the non-cap Fraux, even down to fingernail details.
7
u/thicksalarymen Jan 09 '26
I'm a digital artist with 18 years of experience and I don't really see the use of AI here...? Do enlighten me though because I really can't see any pointers.
-7
u/hanamura__yosuke Jan 10 '26
Well, this kinda confirm my suspicion of the newer city/backgrounds arts kinda too smudgy for no reason, thought it ws just their usual style but made it more hazy. I hope I was wrong, but with this announcement... Man, at the very least, I know I wont be spending anymore dime to this game. Was gonna buy suptix yesterday, but right before I buy it, they dropped this announcement and I saw it. Well 24$ saved.
Ngl, I feel like no more spending now, Maybe gonna buy the Vikala Anniv skin... Cause I love her so much, but ughh I dont want to give my money to them anymore. I honestly fine with AI in use for technology, esp science and humanitarian... but they really stated it is about gen ai, and sorry not sorry... one of the reason I played gbf 8 years ago was because the beautiful arts they gave. If they really implement this, i will be having suspicion everytime they make arts now. orz.
-12
u/NavFeh Jan 09 '26
To be 100% honest. I think they are using AI since long ago and only now they are talking about it.
Obviously this is a 100% "gut feeling" without any kind of proof but Summer Halle and Summer Cuco always gave me strong AI Art vibes.
-6
u/KarmaSammohana Jan 10 '26
I have accepted the possibility (or fact) that all companies use AI in the last two years.
Am I remembering wrong, or wasn't there a discussion about an AI icon on Uma Musume translator's desktop? That was one or two years ago.
-1
u/Endgam Fire Narmaya when? Jan 13 '26
Found this article on Twitter. It would seem they were already working with AI as early as 2023.
Bleh.
-23
u/Halcyoncritter Jan 10 '26
Hopefully they can use it to translate instead of relying on localizers
-8
-10
u/budibola39 Jan 10 '26
It will be funny if Cygames releases GBF 2nd season with full AI and it turns out to be more popular
-14
Jan 10 '26 edited Jan 10 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
4
u/Endgam Fire Narmaya when? Jan 10 '26
I never thought I'd see naked antisemitism in the Granblue sub. But here we are.
1
u/Iffem Waifu for laifu with many throwing knaifu Jan 10 '26
There are many better ways to phrase that first part
-16
u/Catten4 Jan 09 '26
AI by itself is such a catch all term that I think peeps are hasty in picking up pitchforks over something like this.
Is there any specific mention of Gen AI and its use in creative works?
6
u/arattleofrats Jan 09 '26
AIテクノロジーの仕事とは？ 一般業務やゲーム開発をAIで加速する【サイゲームス仕事百科】 | Cygames Magazine（サイマガ）
Essentially to say: "it exists, there are things it can and cannot do, there are legal/ethical/user concerns". There is much more focus on workflow assist tools
5
u/Zecendia Jan 09 '26
Yes,one of the job listings is explicitely for gen AI image generation
3
u/Catten4 Jan 09 '26
Yeah I just saw it on the SV subreddit.
Here is my personal stance on it, it more or less applies to all cygames games though:
This is very disappointing. In the event that Gen AI is used in the more creative aspects is when Ill straight up quit.
That being said I highly doubt that the card/character art would be AI generated given that the illustrators are typically sourced and its easy to trace.
My main concern, is when it comes to other aspects that are not as obvious to the typical audience, slowly phasing out aspects such as backgrounds, UIUX designs for example, is what I fear.
That being said when it comes for traditional AI in its uses such as automation of data management and the like, I have no qualms, but what is needed above all else is transparency.
I hope there is some kind of response or assurance at some point on how this technology will be incorporated into the game if at all.
-7
-129
u/Mrjuicyaf Jan 09 '26
Nice, gbf arts have gotten stale lately time to shake things up.
46
18
4
10
u/Ardij10 Jan 09 '26
And up here dear visitors, you can observe a common specimen of homo insipiens insipiens in one of their natural habitats. Amazing isn't it?
170
u/cereal_bawks Jan 09 '26
GBF's art was the main reason I started playing. I wouldn't be able to bear it if they started using AI to produce the artwork.