Xbox senior business strategy manager Brandon Stirrup has deactivated his X account less than a day after posting a series of messages advocating for the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence in game development. A source at Xbox confirmed to PC Gamer that Stirrup chose to delete his account due to the volume of responses he received.
Stirrup's controversial thread, which began on October 18, stated his belief that game developers and studios not incorporating AI into their strategies are "planning for a fake future." He went on to claim that AI can enable the creation of games with simple prompts and that "everything you want in a game is right there for the taking, for better or worse."
He expressed a willingness to "take the hit" for speaking out, stating, "I'm happy to take the hit if it means hundreds at Xbox can stop pretending that they're not using AI. It's time to accept and move forward."
Stirrup explicitly stated that Xbox "is using AI," adding, "My goal is to get this over with so we can move on as a company, despite the fact that some will persecute me for this: we use AI, just as all companies do in 2026."
This stance aligns with a broader trend in the industry. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney recently announced the company was retooling developers for "maximum AI acceleration," and the Epic Games Store promoted its new launcher as being "vibe coded." Xbox itself has launched a new Xbox Labs program to explore emerging technologies, including AI. Even the Linux kernel has dropped its requirement for AI usage disclosures.
Stirrup has previously encouraged the use of AI tools, notably advising laid-off employees to use Copilot to catalog their skills and accomplishments.
