D&D General Hasbro CEO Says AI Integration Has Been "A Clear Success"

However "people make the decisions and people own the creative outcomes".
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We've known for some time that Hasbro CEO--and former president of Wizards of the Coast--Chris Cocks is an avid AI supporter and enthusiast. He previously noted that of the 30-40 people he games with regularly, "there's not a single person who doesn't use AI somehow for either campaign development or character development or story ideas." In a 2025 interview he described himself as an "AI bull".

In Hasbro's latest earnings call, Cocks briefly addressed the use of AI within the company. While he mentions Hasbro, Wizards of the Coast and the digital studio teams, he doesn't specifically namecheck Dungeons & Dragons. However, he does tout Hasbro's AI integration as a "clear success", referring primarily to non-creative operations such as finances, supply chains, and general productivity enhancements, and emphasises that "people make the decisions and people own the creative outcomes". He also notes that individual teams choose whether or not to use AI.

So while it is clear that AI is deeply embedded in Hasbro's workflows, it is not clear to what extent that applies to Dungeons & Dragons. WotC has indicated multiple times that it will not use AI artwork, and its freelance contracts explicitly prohibit its use. The company also removed AI-generated artwork in 2023's Bigby's Presents: Glory of the Giants.

Before I close, I want to address AI, and how we're using it at Hasbro. We're taking a human-centric creator-led approach. AI is a tool that helps our teams move faster and focus on higher-value work, but people make the decisions and people own the creative outcomes. Teams also have choice in how they use it, including not to use it at all when it doesn't fit the work or the brand. We're beyond experimentation. We're deploying AI across financial planning, forecasting, order management, supply chain operations, training and everyday productivity. Under enterprise controls and clear guidelines around responsible use and IP protection. Anyone who knows me knows I'm an enthusiastic AI user and that mindset extends across the enterprise. We're partnering with best-in-class platforms, including Google Gemini, OpenAI and 11 labs to embed AI into workflows where it adds real value. The impact is tangible. Over the next year, we anticipate these workflows will free up more than 1 million hours of lower-value work, and we're reinvesting that capacity into innovation, creativity and serving fans. Our portfolio of IP and the creators and talent behind it are the foundation of this strategy. Great IP plus great storytelling is durable as technology evolves, and it positions us to benefit from disruption rather than being displaced by it.

In toys, AI-assisted design, paired with 3D printing has fundamentally improved our process. We've reduced time from concept to physical prototype by roughly 80%, enabling faster iteration and more experimentation with human judgment and human craft determining what ultimately gets selected and turned into a final product. We believe the winners in AI will be companies that combine deep IP, creative talent and disciplined deployment. That's exactly where Hasbro sits. As we enter 2026, we view playing to Win and more importantly, the execution behind it by our Hasbro, Wizards of the Coast and digital studio teams as a clear success.
- Chris Cocks, Hasbro CEO​

Wizards of the Coast's most recent statement on AI said "For 50 years, D&D has been built on the innovation, ingenuity, and hard work of talented people who sculpt a beautiful, creative game. That isn't changing. Our internal guidelines remain the same with regards to artificial intelligence tools: We require artists, writers, and creatives contributing to the D&D TTRPG to refrain from using AI generative tools to create final D&D products. We work with some of the most talented artists and creatives in the world, and we believe those people are what makes D&D great."

A small survey of about 500 users right here on EN World in April 2025 indicated that just over 60% of users would not buy D&D products made with AI.
 

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To be fair about the 10 years to mars thing, we absolutely could get to mars with about 10 years of dedicated effort. It’s just that there is no political incentive driving such a long-term efforts. On the other hand, with the US having (apparently) decided to gamble our entire economy on being able to make computers smarter than us within the next decade or so, there is a very strong political motivation to develop energy and cooling solutions for all the data centers we’re building.
For similar values of getting to Mars as getting to the Moon in the sixties.
 

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From what I've read, their idea is to use radiative cooling and to overcome the mass challenges by bringing the cost of launching material to space down by two orders of magnitude. The timeline seems wildly optimistic (I remember '10 years to Mars'). That said, they are now launching rockets every other day and reusing substantial parts of them. I'm also now programming in English. So I have some agnosticism about the whole thing.
IMO your launch cost could be 0, and it would still make no sense because you'd need to replace your whole data center every year as pieces burn out and can't be repaired and old hardware becomes obsolete due to the latest chips being released. Banks already won't underwrite chips in data centers here on Earth because of how fast they depreciate; how much worse would that be in space where your data center is bathed in constant ionizing radiation, can never be repaired, and the entirety of your trade in strategy for your depreciated data center is "de-orbit into the Indian Ocean"?
 




To be fair about the 10 years to mars thing, we absolutely could get to mars with about 10 years of dedicated effort. It’s just that there is no political incentive driving such a long-term efforts.
The non-fiction book A City on Mars also makes a compelling case that no one really should want to colonize Mars without magic-level technology we're nowhere near inventing.

The moon is a lot less sexy, but a moon base is also one where being sent there isn't a very fancy death sentence.
 


To be fair about the 10 years to mars thing, we absolutely could get to mars with about 10 years of dedicated effort. It’s just that there is no political incentive driving such a long-term efforts. On the other hand, with the US having (apparently) decided to gamble our entire economy on being able to make computers smarter than us within the next decade or so, there is a very strong political motivation to develop energy and cooling solutions for all the data centers we’re building.
It had its moment, but even The Martian feels like its from another era.
 

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