Square Enix aims to have AI doing 70% of its QA work by the end of 2027, which seems like it’d be hard to achieve without laying off most of your QA workers
With the release of its latest quarterly financial results, Square Enix published a progress report on its “Square Enix Reboots and Awakens” medium-term business plan. Initiated last year, the three-year plan aims to overhaul the company’s game development and publishing strategy.
In the progress report, Square Enix announced that, as part of its efforts to “create additional foundational stability,” the company has formed a joint research team with the Matsuo Laboratory at the University of Tokyo “aimed at improving the efficiency of game development processes through AI technologies.”
Square Enix’s recent history demonstrates that when it invokes the spirit of “efficiency,” layoffs tend to follow. As an example, the company’s joint AI research is just one piece of its business plan’s effort to “create additional foundational stability.” The other half of that pillar is a “fundamental” restructuring of its overseas publishing organization, which already led to layoffs across its US and EU offices in 2024 following the business plan’s initiation—and has just produced even more.
