Earlier today, news surfaced surrounding Brandon Stirrup, a Business Strategy Manager at XBOX who had gone on record singing the praises of artificial intelligence in game development. In his words, the games industry is the only one pretending not to use AI, and he suggested that developers not getting on board with AI ‘should not be in the business of being a business.’
As you can imagine, social media furor kicked off as Stirrup tried to defend his position, bringing about a cacophony of comments that led to him deleting his profiles.
Stirrup Climbs Out of the Saddle on Social Media
Brandon Stirrup, Senior Business Strategy Manager at XBOX, found himself in hot water recently after publishing a string of posts on social media gushing over artificial intelligence. He even went so far as to publish content tied to a vibe-coded game he assembled while working hand-in-hand with an AI agent.
Unfortunately, Stirrup’s comments were not taken lightly by the wider gaming community, and the XBOX employee was promptly lambasted not long after posting his thoughts.
In one post, he stressed that work that would once take ‘a porting team months’ is being accomplished in a weekend, and he suggested that development teams can’t wait to adopt AI. The most inflammatory statement was the straw that broke the camel’s back:
Everything you plan for will be superseded. You’re planning for a fake future. Gaming is the only industry pretending to not use AI. Gaming is the only industry slow-walking the transition because users have negative sentiment. Everyone else accepts reality. If you’re a game developer refusing to believe that AI has a place in your future, you should not be in the business of being a business.
He argued that even he and those close to him need to ‘get over this’ so they can succeed, and by ‘they’, he means Microsoft and XBOX. He outright declared: ‘We use AI, just as all companies do in 2026.’
He’s saying that folks need to just accept that AI is here and learn how to deal with it. He then went down a darker path, suggesting that he might be fired for speaking the truth on social media, but then he stated he’s ‘happy to take the hit if it means hundreds at XBOX can stop pretending that they’re not using AI.’
Hours after the posts went live, Brandon deactivated his social profile:
PC Gamer received a comment from someone ‘at XBOX’ who claimed Stirrup deleted the social media profile because of the exorbitant volume of replies he was getting. But you can mute threads on X.com, so I’m not sure what he’s talking about.
Do you think Brandon Stirrupt was right in what he had to say about AI in gaming? Let us know your thoughts on the Insider Gaming Discord server.
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Grant has been gaming for 30+ years and in the industry for 10+. You'll probably find him playing a post-apocalyptic game or an extraction shooter somewhere.
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