Larian staff use generative AI tools to explore rough ideas and create visual references during the earliest stages of game development — similar to doing an image search online but using AI to generate the reference image instead of finding one. None of this output appears in shipped games.

The December 2025 Bloomberg interview reported that developers used AI tools to flesh out internal presentations and explore creative directions at the ideation stage. CEO Swen Vincke and Publishing Director Michael Douse both characterized this as equivalent to searching reference books or Google Images — a starting point for human artists to develop from, not a source of finished assets. Vincke also described using AI tools to speed up early-stage level design prototyping, a process sometimes called "whiteboxing." Following the backlash and January 2026 AMA, generative AI use in concept art was formally banned, but Vincke confirmed the studio continues to experiment with generative AI tools across other departments.