AI Usage at a Glance
Timeline
Sep 1, 2019
OtherPractice documented: Fortnite uses an algorithm to match players of similar skill levels against each other rather than grouping players randomly. To fill out lower-skill matches, the game also adds AI-controlled bot players that are designed to behave like real players. Both systems have been active since 2019 and remain among the game's most debated features.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Jun 22, 2021
Data AnalysisPractice documented: Easy Anti-Cheat, the cheat-prevention system Epic has owned since 2018, uses machine learning to spot players who are cheating — analyzing patterns in how people play rather than just scanning for known cheat software. It runs in the background for Fortnite and hundreds of other games that license the technology from Epic.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Dec 1, 2022
OtherPractice documented: After widespread protests from artists in December 2022, Epic's portfolio platform ArtStation introduced a "NoAI" label that artists can apply to their work to signal they do not want it used in AI training datasets. Epic also updated its terms of service to commit that it will not use or license any ArtStation content — labeled or not — for AI training purposes.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Dec 13, 2022
OtherNew evidence: Artists Protest After ArtStation Features AI-Generated Images [Update]
Evidence AddedView practice →Jan 18, 2023
ModerationPractice documented: On Epic's 3D asset marketplace Fab (and its sister site Sketchfab), sellers are required to label content made with AI tools. Epic also uses automated detection to find unlabeled AI-generated assets — and can apply the label itself if a seller hasn't done so. This policy was introduced after a flood of tens of thousands of AI-generated models overwhelmed the marketplace in 2025.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Feb 20, 2023
ModerationPractice documented: Epic uses machine learning tools built by a company called Contex.ai to automatically screen player voice chat, text chat, and creator-submitted content in Fortnite for harmful material. When a player reports someone, a recording of recent voice chat is captured and reviewed by both automated tools and human moderators.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Sep 1, 2023
OtherPractice documented: Epic provides a plugin for Unreal Engine 5 that lets game developers train AI-controlled characters and agents by having them learn through trial and error — similar to how a person gets better at a task by practicing. The tool, called Learning Agents, launched as an experimental feature with Unreal Engine 5.3 in September 2023 and is aimed at developers, not players.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Nov 16, 2023
ModerationNew evidence: Technical blog: More details on how we built voice reporting
Evidence AddedView practice →Jan 1, 2024
OtherNew evidence: An Introduction to Unreal Learning Agents
Evidence AddedView practice →Jan 1, 2024
OtherPractice documented: Unreal Engine 5 supports NVIDIA's DLSS technology, which uses AI to make games run more smoothly on compatible graphics cards by generating additional frames and sharpening images — without the full processing cost of rendering everything natively. Epic has also integrated NVIDIA's ACE tools, which give developers AI-powered options for animating digital human faces and generating NPC speech.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Mar 28, 2024
Creative GenPractice documented: Epic's MetaHuman toolset lets game developers create photorealistic digital human characters in minutes using machine learning — a process that once took months of manual work. It launched in February 2021 and has grown to include tools that animate faces from iPhone footage and simulate muscle and cloth movement in real time.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Aug 13, 2024
RecommendationPractice documented: The Fortnite Discover section — where players browse and choose user-made game modes — uses multiple AI-powered recommendation models to decide which games each player sees. Rather than showing everyone the same list, the system tailors suggestions based on what each player has enjoyed before and what similar players are playing. It also automatically detects trending or high-quality new content to give it extra visibility.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Oct 1, 2024
OtherNew evidence: Simplify and Scale AI-Powered MetaHuman Deployment with NVIDIA ACE and Unreal Engine 5
Evidence AddedView practice →Dec 13, 2024
OtherNew evidence: Fortnite OG's SBMM Controversy Explained
Evidence AddedView practice →Jan 1, 2025
Customer SvcPractice documented: Epic added an AI-powered chatbot to its customer support website that guides players and developers through troubleshooting steps before connecting them to a human support agent. It began limited testing around October 2024 and has since expanded to multiple languages. Epic explicitly distinguishes the AI chatbot from its human live chat agents.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Jan 1, 2025
ProductivityPractice documented: Epic built an AI assistant into Unreal Engine and its Fortnite creator tools that helps developers write code, fix errors, and navigate the software by answering questions in plain language. It launched in 2025 and is available both inside the editor and on the web. Epic describes it as a learning aid, not a replacement for official documentation.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Feb 27, 2025
Data AnalysisNew evidence: Fortnite Anti-Cheat Update - February 27, 2025
Evidence AddedView practice →Apr 2, 2025
ProductivityPractice documented: In April 2025, Epic acquired Loci, an AI company whose tools automatically tag, label, and categorize 3D digital assets using computer vision. The technology is being integrated into Epic's Fab marketplace to improve how artists and developers search for and find 3D content — and to help detect stolen or duplicate assets.
Practice DocumentedView practice →May 1, 2025
RecommendationPractice documented: The Epic Games Store uses machine learning to suggest games to shoppers based on what they have previously played and purchased. Epic's 2025 store roadmap also announced a dedicated "For You" section with personalized picks. Compared to Steam, the store is more editorially curated, with algorithms playing a supporting rather than dominant role.
Practice DocumentedView practice →May 1, 2025
ModerationNew evidence: 12 Update on products generated with AI
Evidence AddedView practice →May 19, 2025
Creative GenPractice documented: In May 2025, Fortnite added an interactive Darth Vader character whose voice was generated in real time by AI — not recorded by a human actor. Players could speak to Vader using their microphone, and an AI system responded in his voice and stayed in character. The feature triggered a formal labor complaint from the Hollywood actors' union SAG-AFTRA, which argued the AI replaced a union voice actor who had played the role for nearly 30 years.
Practice DocumentedView practice →May 21, 2025
Creative GenNew evidence: Fortnite’s AI Darth Vader voice prompts complaint from Hollywood actors’ union
Evidence AddedView practice →May 30, 2025
Creative GenNew evidence: Fortnite’s Darth Vader AI: What is it, and how does it work?
Evidence AddedView practice →Jun 3, 2025
Creative GenPractice documented: Epic's 3D scanning app RealityScan added AI-powered features in 2025 that automatically clean up photos and align images when converting real-world objects into 3D models. This reduces manual work for game artists who use photography to create in-game assets.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Jun 3, 2025
Creative GenPractice documented: Epic is giving Fortnite's creator community a toolset — called the Persona Device — to build their own AI-powered characters that can hold real conversations with players. Rather than scripting every line of dialogue, creators write a short personality description and select a voice style; the AI handles the rest live during gameplay. The tool was announced at Epic's State of Unreal keynote in June 2025.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Jun 4, 2025
Creative GenNew evidence: Fortnite creators can soon build their own AI-driven characters
Evidence AddedView practice →Sep 29, 2025
Customer SvcNew evidence: After AI-Powered Darth Vader, Fortnite Introduces An AI Chatbot
Evidence AddedView practice →Nov 28, 2025
Data AnalysisPractice documented: Epic uses automated systems, including machine learning, to detect fraudulent purchases, account theft, and other unauthorized activity across its games and storefront. This is disclosed in Epic's privacy policy but the specific systems used are not publicly described in detail.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Nov 30, 2025
Creative GenPractice documented: In late 2025, Fortnite players and gaming press accused Epic of including AI-generated images in Fortnite's Chapter 7 Season 1 update — pointing to background posters, billboards, and a Free Pass song with telltale signs of AI tools. Epic has not confirmed or denied using AI in these specific assets. One artist publicly defended their work as hand-made, and a player survey found a large majority opposed to AI content in the game.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Dec 1, 2025
ModerationNew evidence: Sketchfab to require mandatory AI disclosure, Epic Games accounts for users
Evidence AddedView practice →Dec 1, 2025
Creative GenNew evidence: Fortnite Chapter 7 kicks off with artist defending their work from AI allegations, probably not helped by Epic CEO's recent prediction that "AI will be involved in nearly all future production" of games
Evidence AddedView practice →Dec 1, 2025
Creative GenNew evidence: Fortnite has seemingly expanded it's AI usage to Art in it's latest season
Evidence AddedView practice →Dec 11, 2025
ProductivityNew evidence: Unreal Engine 5.7: foliage, PCG and in-Editor AI
Evidence AddedView practice →Feb 1, 2026
Creative GenNew evidence: Max Planck spin-off draws Epic Games to Tübingen
Evidence AddedView practice →Recent activity
After widespread protests from artists in December 2022, Epic's portfolio platform ArtStation introduced a "NoAI" label that artists can apply to their work to signal they do not want it used in AI training datasets. Epic also updated its terms of service to commit that it will not use or license any ArtStation content — labeled or not — for AI training purposes.
Following a mass protest in which thousands of artists posted black squares to ArtStation in opposition to AI-generated art appearing on the platform, Epic rolled out the NoAI tag in late December 2022. The tag adds a metadata signal to the artist's portfolio page. ArtStation's terms of service were updated to prohibit scraping or mining of NoAI-tagged content for AI training. Critically, the tag is opt-in rather than opt-out by default — meaning artists must actively apply it, which was a point of ongoing criticism from the community. However, Epic went further than the tag alone: its terms of service now state that Epic will not use any user content on ArtStation — regardless of whether the NoAI tag is applied — as training data for generative AI programs or in the development of generative AI tools. Community response was mixed; many appreciated the commitment but noted that significant amounts of ArtStation artwork had already been scraped for AI training data before the policy existed, including by the dataset used to train Stable Diffusion.
Epic provides a plugin for Unreal Engine 5 that lets game developers train AI-controlled characters and agents by having them learn through trial and error — similar to how a person gets better at a task by practicing. The tool, called Learning Agents, launched as an experimental feature with Unreal Engine 5.3 in September 2023 and is aimed at developers, not players.
Learning Agents supports two training approaches. Reinforcement learning rewards the AI agent for making good decisions — such as navigating a course correctly — and penalizes it for mistakes, allowing the agent to gradually improve. Imitation learning records a human player performing a task and trains the AI to mimic those behaviors. Training is done via Python-based scripts within the plugin. Use cases include NPC behaviors, physics-based character animation, and game-playing agents. The tool has been featured in Hugging Face's deep reinforcement learning course, indicating some adoption in the broader AI development community. As of 2025, Learning Agents remains marked as Experimental in the engine and has not been widely adopted in shipped commercial games.
Unreal Engine 5 supports NVIDIA's DLSS technology, which uses AI to make games run more smoothly on compatible graphics cards by generating additional frames and sharpening images — without the full processing cost of rendering everything natively. Epic has also integrated NVIDIA's ACE tools, which give developers AI-powered options for animating digital human faces and generating NPC speech.
NVIDIA provides Unreal Engine 5 plugins for DLSS 4, which encompasses several AI-powered graphics features: Multi Frame Generation (creating additional frames between rendered ones), Ray Reconstruction (improving lighting quality using machine learning), and Super Resolution (upscaling lower-resolution images to appear sharper). These run on-device using NVIDIA's RTX graphics processors. At Unreal Fest 2024, NVIDIA also released UE5 plugins for its Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE), which includes Audio2Face-3D (AI facial animation driven by audio input), automatic speech recognition, small language models for NPC dialogue, and text-to-speech generation. These are NVIDIA-developed technologies that Epic has integrated into its engine as optional plugins, not Epic-developed AI systems.
All practices by category
Epic's 3D scanning app RealityScan added AI-powered features in 2025 that automatically clean up photos and align images when converting real-world objects into 3D models. This reduces manual work for game artists who use photography to create in-game assets.
In late 2025, Fortnite players and gaming press accused Epic of including AI-generated images in Fortnite's Chapter 7 Season 1 update — pointing to background posters, billboards, and a Free Pass song with telltale signs of AI tools. Epic has not confirmed or denied using AI in these specific assets. One artist publicly defended their work as hand-made, and a player survey found a large majority opposed to AI content in the game.
Epic is giving Fortnite's creator community a toolset — called the Persona Device — to build their own AI-powered characters that can hold real conversations with players. Rather than scripting every line of dialogue, creators write a short personality description and select a voice style; the AI handles the rest live during gameplay. The tool was announced at Epic's State of Unreal keynote in June 2025.
In May 2025, Fortnite added an interactive Darth Vader character whose voice was generated in real time by AI — not recorded by a human actor. Players could speak to Vader using their microphone, and an AI system responded in his voice and stayed in character. The feature triggered a formal labor complaint from the Hollywood actors' union SAG-AFTRA, which argued the AI replaced a union voice actor who had played the role for nearly 30 years.
Epic's MetaHuman toolset lets game developers create photorealistic digital human characters in minutes using machine learning — a process that once took months of manual work. It launched in February 2021 and has grown to include tools that animate faces from iPhone footage and simulate muscle and cloth movement in real time.
After widespread protests from artists in December 2022, Epic's portfolio platform ArtStation introduced a "NoAI" label that artists can apply to their work to signal they do not want it used in AI training datasets. Epic also updated its terms of service to commit that it will not use or license any ArtStation content — labeled or not — for AI training purposes.
Epic provides a plugin for Unreal Engine 5 that lets game developers train AI-controlled characters and agents by having them learn through trial and error — similar to how a person gets better at a task by practicing. The tool, called Learning Agents, launched as an experimental feature with Unreal Engine 5.3 in September 2023 and is aimed at developers, not players.
Unreal Engine 5 supports NVIDIA's DLSS technology, which uses AI to make games run more smoothly on compatible graphics cards by generating additional frames and sharpening images — without the full processing cost of rendering everything natively. Epic has also integrated NVIDIA's ACE tools, which give developers AI-powered options for animating digital human faces and generating NPC speech.
Fortnite uses an algorithm to match players of similar skill levels against each other rather than grouping players randomly. To fill out lower-skill matches, the game also adds AI-controlled bot players that are designed to behave like real players. Both systems have been active since 2019 and remain among the game's most debated features.
The Epic Games Store uses machine learning to suggest games to shoppers based on what they have previously played and purchased. Epic's 2025 store roadmap also announced a dedicated "For You" section with personalized picks. Compared to Steam, the store is more editorially curated, with algorithms playing a supporting rather than dominant role.
The Fortnite Discover section — where players browse and choose user-made game modes — uses multiple AI-powered recommendation models to decide which games each player sees. Rather than showing everyone the same list, the system tailors suggestions based on what each player has enjoyed before and what similar players are playing. It also automatically detects trending or high-quality new content to give it extra visibility.
On Epic's 3D asset marketplace Fab (and its sister site Sketchfab), sellers are required to label content made with AI tools. Epic also uses automated detection to find unlabeled AI-generated assets — and can apply the label itself if a seller hasn't done so. This policy was introduced after a flood of tens of thousands of AI-generated models overwhelmed the marketplace in 2025.
Epic uses machine learning tools built by a company called Contex.ai to automatically screen player voice chat, text chat, and creator-submitted content in Fortnite for harmful material. When a player reports someone, a recording of recent voice chat is captured and reviewed by both automated tools and human moderators.
Epic uses automated systems, including machine learning, to detect fraudulent purchases, account theft, and other unauthorized activity across its games and storefront. This is disclosed in Epic's privacy policy but the specific systems used are not publicly described in detail.
Easy Anti-Cheat, the cheat-prevention system Epic has owned since 2018, uses machine learning to spot players who are cheating — analyzing patterns in how people play rather than just scanning for known cheat software. It runs in the background for Fortnite and hundreds of other games that license the technology from Epic.
In April 2025, Epic acquired Loci, an AI company whose tools automatically tag, label, and categorize 3D digital assets using computer vision. The technology is being integrated into Epic's Fab marketplace to improve how artists and developers search for and find 3D content — and to help detect stolen or duplicate assets.
Epic built an AI assistant into Unreal Engine and its Fortnite creator tools that helps developers write code, fix errors, and navigate the software by answering questions in plain language. It launched in 2025 and is available both inside the editor and on the web. Epic describes it as a learning aid, not a replacement for official documentation.
Cite this record
Trace Foundation. (2026). Epic Games: documented AI practices (data as of 2026-03-18) [Data set record]. AI Trace. https://www.aitrace.org/r/company/1b9cc257-c7e1-49aa-9b55-2a8ed115be78. Accessed September 12, 2026.
- Stable link
- https://www.aitrace.org/r/company/1b9cc257-c7e1-49aa-9b55-2a8ed115be78
- Data as of
- March 18, 2026
- Last verified
- March 18, 2026
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