Epic Games executives suggest “AI is going to become more and more difficult to detect”

Epic Games has confirmed it will not be policing the AI “slop” used in thumbnail generation for third-party mini-games in Fortnite, saying “it’s probably going to become unenforceable” as AI becomes more difficult to distinguish from human-made artwork.

The comment comes as Fortnite’s user-generated content is increasingly fronted by thumbnails generated via AI.

In an interview with Mustard Plays, Epic Games execs stressed the company’s priority was ensuring the thumbnails were “compliant with [its] rules.” They also emphasized that Epic would not be using AI in its own first-party Fortnite modes, with executive vice president Sax Persson suggesting that the “best results” still came from human artists, not artificial intelligence.

“From our perspective, for moderation, thumbnails – like, we don’t really care what tool you use to make your thumbnails,” product management director Dan Walsh said, as transcribed by our sister site, Eurogamer. “All we care about is whether or not it’s compliant with our rules.

“I think to some degree AI is going to become more and more difficult to detect. It’s not going to stand out as a unique thing, it’s just going to be another tool that people are using to create things.

“So trying to look for that specifically is going to become increasingly difficult to the point where it’s probably going to become unenforceable. We’re really just focused on – ‘does this asset comply with our rules, yes or no?’, not ‘what tool did you use to make this asset’?”

In terms Epic using AI itself, Persson said: “We’ve always embraced new technology, but with an ethical stance on the source, like as we generate things, it has to be understood and it has to be properly licensed. So to that degree, we rely on what we provide to people directly to be the best tools that we can humanly do, but the ethical guidelines are proper ownership.”

In February, Epic shared its Epic Games Store 2024 Year in Review blog post, highlighting its achievement of reaching 295 million users on its PC store representing an increase of 25 million users year-on-year.

Consumer spending on the platform reached $1.09 billion in 2024, an increase of 15% from last year. In comparison, spending on third-party titles declined by 18% to $255 million.