Version 2026.11
AI coding tools used by game developers (2026)
Every published 2025–2026 survey figure we could find on which AI coding tools and assistants developers use, with game-industry surveys first and general developer surveys marked as such.
| Survey | Published | Who was asked | Base | Measure | Answer | Share (%) | Source checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GDC State of the Game Industry 2026 | Jan 2026 | Games industry professionals (2,300+) | All respondents | Use generative AI tools in their job | Yes | 36 | 2026-10-21 |
| GDC State of the Game Industry 2026 | Jan 2026 | Games industry professionals (2,300+) | Generative AI users | Use it for code assistance | Yes | 47 | 2026-10-21 |
| GDC State of the Game Industry 2026 | Jan 2026 | Games industry professionals (2,300+) | Generative AI users | Generative AI tool used | ChatGPT | 74 | 2026-10-21 |
| GDC State of the Game Industry 2026 | Jan 2026 | Games industry professionals (2,300+) | Generative AI users | Generative AI tool used | Google Gemini | 37 | 2026-10-21 |
| GDC State of the Game Industry 2026 | Jan 2026 | Games industry professionals (2,300+) | Generative AI users | Generative AI tool used | Microsoft Copilot | 22 | 2026-10-21 |
| GDC State of the Game Industry 2026 | Jan 2026 | Games industry professionals (2,300+) | All respondents | Say generative AI is having a negative impact on the industry | Yes | 52 | 2026-10-21 |
| GDC State of the Game Industry 2026 | Jan 2026 | Games industry professionals (2,300+) | Game programmers | Say generative AI is having a negative impact on the industry | Yes | 59 | 2026-10-21 |
| Unity 2026 Game Development Report | 9 Mar 2026 | Game developers (300) | Not stated | Use AI for coding assistance | Yes | 62 | 2026-10-21 |
| Unity 2026 Game Development Report | 9 Mar 2026 | Game developers (300) | Not stated | Use MCP servers | Yes | 50 | 2026-10-21 |
| Google Cloud / Harris Poll | 18 Aug 2025 | Game developers in the US, South Korea, Norway, Finland and Sweden (615) | All respondents | Use AI agents in their work | Yes | 87 | 2026-10-21 |
| Google Cloud / Harris Poll | 18 Aug 2025 | Game developers in the US, South Korea, Norway, Finland and Sweden (615) | All respondents | Say AI helps with code generation and scripting | Yes | 44 | 2026-10-21 |
| Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2026 | 2026 survey | All developers (30,903) | 12,255 | Coding agent or assistant used in the past year | Claude Code | 65.5 | 2026-10-21 |
| Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2026 | 2026 survey | All developers (30,903) | 12,255 | Coding agent or assistant used in the past year | GitHub Copilot | 58.7 | 2026-10-21 |
| Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2026 | 2026 survey | All developers (30,903) | 12,255 | Coding agent or assistant used in the past year | OpenAI Codex | 29.5 | 2026-10-21 |
| Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2026 | 2026 survey | All developers (30,903) | 12,255 | Coding agent or assistant used in the past year | Cursor | 25.5 | 2026-10-21 |
| Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2026 | 2026 survey | All developers (30,903) | 12,255 | Coding agent or assistant used in the past year | Google Antigravity | 16 | 2026-10-21 |
| Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2026 | 2026 survey | All developers (30,903) | 12,255 | Coding agent or assistant used in the past year | Gemini Code Assist | 14.6 | 2026-10-21 |
| Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2026 | 2026 survey | All developers (30,903) | 12,255 | Coding agent or assistant used in the past year | OpenCode | 13.6 | 2026-10-21 |
| Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2026 | 2026 survey | All developers (30,903) | 12,255 | Coding agent or assistant used in the past year | JetBrains AI | 12.8 | 2026-10-21 |
| Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2026 | 2026 survey | All developers (30,903) | 12,255 | Coding agent or assistant used in the past year | Windsurf | 6.5 | 2026-10-21 |
| Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2026 | 2026 survey | All developers (30,903) | 12,255 | Coding agent or assistant used in the past year | Cline | 4.5 | 2026-10-21 |
| Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2026 | 2026 survey | All developers (30,903) | 12,255 | Coding agent or assistant used in the past year | Aider | 2.1 | 2026-10-21 |
| JetBrains Developer Ecosystem Survey 2026 | Aug 2026 | Professional developers (15,000+, weighted) | All respondents | AI coding tool used at work | Claude Code | 39 | 2026-11-03 |
| JetBrains Developer Ecosystem Survey 2026 | Aug 2026 | Professional developers (15,000+, weighted) | All respondents | AI coding tool used at work | GitHub Copilot | 21 | 2026-11-03 |
| JetBrains Developer Ecosystem Survey 2026 | Aug 2026 | Professional developers (15,000+, weighted) | All respondents | AI coding tool used at work | OpenAI Codex | 16 | 2026-11-03 |
| JetBrains Developer Ecosystem Survey 2026 | Aug 2026 | Professional developers (15,000+, weighted) | All respondents | AI coding tool used at work | Cursor | 12 | 2026-11-03 |
| JetBrains Developer Ecosystem Survey 2026 | Aug 2026 | Professional developers (15,000+, weighted) | All respondents | AI coding tool used at work | JetBrains AI (IDEs and/or Junie) | 9 | 2026-11-03 |
| JetBrains Developer Ecosystem Survey 2026 | Aug 2026 | Professional developers (15,000+, weighted) | All respondents | AI coding tool used at work | OpenCode | 7 | 2026-11-03 |
| JetBrains Developer Ecosystem Survey 2026 | Aug 2026 | Professional developers (15,000+, weighted) | All respondents | AI coding tool used at work | Google Antigravity | 6 | 2026-11-03 |
| JetBrains Developer Ecosystem Survey 2026 | Aug 2026 | Professional developers (15,000+, weighted) | All respondents | Use AI coding agents at work at least weekly | Yes | 90 | 2026-11-03 |
| JetBrains Developer Ecosystem Survey 2026 | Aug 2026 | Professional developers (15,000+, weighted) | All respondents | Use AI coding agents at work daily | Yes | 68 | 2026-11-03 |
| JetBrains AI Pulse (January 2026) | Apr 2026 | Professional developers (10,000+, weighted) | All respondents | AI coding tool used at work | GitHub Copilot | 29 | 2026-10-21 |
| JetBrains AI Pulse (January 2026) | Apr 2026 | Professional developers (10,000+, weighted) | All respondents | AI coding tool used at work | Cursor | 18 | 2026-10-21 |
| JetBrains AI Pulse (January 2026) | Apr 2026 | Professional developers (10,000+, weighted) | All respondents | AI coding tool used at work | Claude Code | 18 | 2026-10-21 |
| JetBrains AI Pulse (January 2026) | Apr 2026 | Professional developers (10,000+, weighted) | All respondents | AI coding tool used at work | JetBrains AI Assistant | 9 | 2026-10-21 |
| JetBrains AI Pulse (January 2026) | Apr 2026 | Professional developers (10,000+, weighted) | All respondents | AI coding tool used at work | Google Antigravity | 6 | 2026-10-21 |
| JetBrains AI Pulse (January 2026) | Apr 2026 | Professional developers (10,000+, weighted) | All respondents | AI coding tool used at work | OpenAI Codex | 3 | 2026-10-21 |
This table brings together every 2025–2026 survey figure we could find on AI coding tools. The game industry surveys come first. They say how many developers use AI for code, but none of them names coding agents, so the tool-by-tool shares come from Stack Overflow and JetBrains, which survey all developers.
Three things stand out. Among general developers, Claude Code (65.5%) and GitHub Copilot (58.7%) are well ahead of the other coding agents in Stack Overflow's 2026 survey, and JetBrains' newer survey of over 15,000 professional developers, run May–July 2026, puts Claude Code first at work at around 39%, ahead of Copilot (21%), Codex (16%) and Cursor (12%). The two surveys ask different questions, so their shares aren't directly comparable. Inside games, Unity found 62% using AI for coding assistance and half using MCP servers, which connect an agent to the editor. And game programmers are among the most negative groups about AI's effect on the industry (59% negative in GDC's survey), even as many of them use it.
For what these setups look like in Unity, Unreal and Godot, and what tends to go wrong, read AI-assisted game coding: the setups that work.
Methodology
One row for each figure we include. We copied each share exactly as the survey publisher reports it, from the publisher's own results page or report where we could open it, and we don't combine or average figures across surveys: they ask different questions of different people. "Who was asked" says whether the survey covers game developers or developers in general. Stack Overflow and JetBrains survey all software developers, not only game developers, and they're included because no 2026 game industry survey breaks AI use down by named coding tool. Where a survey publishes the number of people who answered a question, it's in "Base". GDC's tool shares are among respondents who use generative AI at work; Unity doesn't say whether its shares are of all respondents or of AI users. Stack Overflow lists more than 30 coding agents and assistants; we show a selection, and the full list is on its results page. JetBrains' January 2026 rows are kept beside its May–July 2026 rows: the survey column says which edition each row is from. JetBrains measured OpenAI Codex at 3% in January and 16% in May–July, and it words its Claude Code and JetBrains AI figures as "around" 39% and 9%. Figures are checked again when each survey publishes its next edition.
Related
Sources
- GDC – 2026 State of the Game Industry, published by gdconf.com
- GamingOnLinux – GDC 2026 report, 36% of developers use generative AI (30 Jan 2026), published by gamingonlinux.com
- Unity – 2026 Game Development Report (9 Mar 2026), published by unity.com
- Google Cloud / Harris Poll – AI meets the games industry (2025), published by services.google.com
- Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2026 – AI, published by survey.stackoverflow.co
- Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2026 – AI data, published by survey.stackoverflow.co
- JetBrains – AI coding agent adoption in 2026, Developer Ecosystem Survey 2026 (Aug 2026), published by blog.jetbrains.com
- JetBrains – Which AI coding tools do developers actually use at work? (Apr 2026), published by blog.jetbrains.com
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