CD Projekt Red is gearing up to ramp up production on The Witcher 4 later this year, with the company planning to avoid using artificial intelligence programs to replace its employees. Instead, CDPR plans to have "around 400" people working on the sequel in a few months.

"We'd like to have around 400 people working on the project by the middle of the year", CDPR CEO Adam Badowski explained to Forbes. When asked about the use of AI tools, Badowski added that while the company had formed a team to look at how it could incorporate this technology into its work, it didn't see it as a replacement for its employees.

"We think that AI is something that can help improve certain processes in game production, but not replace people," Badowski said. Currently, CDPR has several projects in varying stages of development, ranging from a remake of the first Witcher game all the way up to a full-fledged sequel to Cyberpunk 2077, although these are being developed in the wake of the company laying off 10% of its workforce.

Meanwhile, AI continues to be the big new trend around the world, popping up in upcoming smartphone releases, new games like Foamstars, and controversially, bad attempts at comedy. Square Enix has already indicated that it will be "getting aggressive with AI use" and Valve has updated Steam's policies on AI use to make studios disclose whether AI was used in the development of a game.