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

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​

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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.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

My Thursday in person group takes constant notes in their little notebooks individually, and has consistently been the most engaged; retained; and consistent group in building upon themselves and pushing forward session after session.

Legal pads and fountain pens is where it's at, babies.

 

[tetrasodium]

An interesting question came up on a discord thread for WFRP.

A DM wanted to look at publishing the adventure he ran for his group. It’s a 100% self written homebrew campaign that he was running personally. His own notes are too patchy to do anything with and a lot of the creativity came in on the fly anyway.

So he uses an AI voice capture tool - like some of the campaign summary tools mentioned above - and captures his actual game play. He then uses AI editing tools to cut out the irrelevant chat and refine it into room descriptions, NPC goals and behaviors, item descriptions etc. before using these AI edited notes of his own sessions to write the actual adventure for publication.

What are people’s thoughts? AI slop or a sensible use of machine learning tools? What if he wants to sell the finished work. Also should he declare it as written with AI even though the original creativity was his?

I've sta few authors on webnovel sites like royal road call it ai assisted. Usually they are non English or ESL authors. IME they get treated pretty harshly by the vendetta holy war crowd just for admitting it. The reviews usually get scrubbed and deleted but it adds up.

IMO the current ai outrage is a hot button for some folks because almost overnight they were forced to go from saying things like "ai could never take MY job, I'M a [narrowly skilled] CREATIVE" to the same bottomless pit that ai and automation where everyone they had been telling to get better skills and such for decades.

It will take time, but it will blow over and be forgotten about. Eventually bad things will happen when self driving develops enough to not need still need the current remote human oversight as a safety net.

 

[SkidAce]

sensible use


he should declare that it was written with the help of AI, that is what he did after all

I would say edited with AI, to emphasize I was the originator, but I agree with you he should declare something, it was used.

 

[zakael19]

So he uses an AI voice capture tool - like some of the campaign summary tools mentioned above - and captures his actual game play. He then uses AI editing tools to cut out the irrelevant chat and refine it into room descriptions, NPC goals and behaviors, item descriptions etc. before using these AI edited notes of his own sessions to write the actual adventure for publication.

If he’s taking voice capture (transcription and summarization tools are one of the older LLM uses from back before GenAI everywhere), and backrefining his own stuff out? Eh.

But half the gold of writing good modules is in knowing what to trim down and provide as a usable but not excessive content. GenAI tends to lean the opposite direction, it wants to give you more constantly. If he’s editing his own words down from a transcription service without relying on an AI to summarize / format / etc. cool! Sounds like he’s asking for more of an active role though.

 

[The Firebird]

If he’s taking voice capture (transcription and summarization tools are one of the older LLM uses from back before GenAI everywhere), and backrefining his own stuff out? Eh.

But half the gold of writing good modules is in knowing what to trim down and provide as a usable but not excessive content. GenAI tends to lean the opposite direction, it wants to give you more constantly. If he’s editing his own words down from a transcription service without relying on an AI to summarize / format / etc. cool! Sounds like he’s asking for more of an active role though.

Ime the length issue improves considerably if you give it a writing sample of your own stuff and ask it to summarize in that style.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Seems I read about something called the Butlerian Jihad...

If Roko's Basilisk looks at you you need to make a CON save or turn into a Zizian.

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.

Not beating the "AI is mostly a way to get investors to pay attention to us" allegations, but ultimately this is probably a Fine approach. Don't force it, let folks use it how they want, and have humans be ultimately accountable. Doesn't solve the systemic issues of AI, but then it was never going to do that and Chris's job is to make stonk go brrrr.

If the main goal to push AI is PROFIT over PROGRESS, I'm skeptical.

Here's der fing:

The job of a CEO is usually to make the stock of the company go up (it's probably part of Chris's compensation here).

The stock market at the moment is pretty disconnected from PROGRESS. Quality products and innovation are nice and all but what's REALLY nice is rent-seeking and sweet government deals and effective monopolies and mature markets with only 5 dominant companies that no new business can enter into and whatever investor bros are horny about in between hits of cocaine at Peter Thiel's Church of Techno-Feudalism or whatever.

So Chris's job isn't to seek progress. It's to make people want to buy HAS stock. And pretending to care (or, more dangerously, actually caring) about AI is part of how he does that.

If progress happens on the way, it's fine. Nice little externality, even. Great for your brand. Maybe even something Chris is personally invested in to some extent.

But if you want someone motivated by progress intrinsically, you've gotta look outside of anyone who has something to sell (especially if they're part of a publicly traded company). Chris wants to make HAS stock go up in value. Progress is only useful to the extent that it does that.

 

[ECMO3]

I wish WOTC would be consistent, just two years ago they went with the "we are not going to allow any AI art ...."

As a company their "moral compass" is all over the map.

 

[mamba]

As a company their "moral compass" is all over the map.

seems to be another way of saying that they do not have one

 

[zakael19]

I wish WOTC would be consistent, just two years ago they went with the "we are not going to allow any AI art ...."

As a company their "moral compass" is all over the map.

Have they started allowing AI art? To date, the corporate side has been one of the shining stars for artists, consistently paying tops for work.

Plus given that AI art isn’t (afaik?) covered by rights protection, I don’t see Hasbro/WOTC giving up control of their published depictions at this time.

 

[chuckdee]

sensible use


he should declare that it was written with the help of AI, that is what he did after all

That would enter into a very fuzzy area as many tools integrate/use Ai in their methodology of operation seamlessly. Is someone that uses Ai in a tool that spots mistakes in their text using AI?