GamesBeat Next panel: AI-native games should be built around AI from the start

A panel on games built for AI

Game developers should build new kinds of games around artificial intelligence rather than adding smarter characters to existing ones, according to a panel at GamesBeat Next 2026 in San Francisco on 12 November 2026.

The session, titled AI-native game development, brought together Brian Tanner, chief executive officer of Artificial Agency; Piero Molino, chief executive officer of Studio Atelico; and Jon Snoddy, chief executive officer of Operative Games. Jamil Moledina, a partner at Principal Venture Partners, moderated.

Agents as something to play with

Tanner tied the appeal of AI in games to the wider development of agentic AI, software that can act on its own toward a goal. He previously worked at Google DeepMind.

He said games offer a way to show what AI agents can do and to let a wider audience try them. "I wanted to remind people why agents are actually really cool," Tanner said, according to GamesBeat. He added that letting people play with agents and have experiences they have not had before would be the way to do it.

The panel's central theme was that the biggest opportunity may lie in experiences that would not be possible without AI, not in making existing games with smarter characters.

What the panel left open

The report does not say which games the three studios are building, when any AI-native title will be released, or how the companies plan to fund development.

It also does not give the panel's view on how such games would be priced or sold. GamesBeat Next 2026 took place in San Francisco; the report gives no further dates for the event.