Not conclusively. In July 2025, anonymous King employees told MobileGamer.biz that AI tools were effectively replacing some teams amid reported plans to cut around 200 jobs. King has not publicly confirmed that specific laid-off employees or roles were replaced by AI. In an April 2026 interview, a King vice president described AI as a support tool for level designers but declined to discuss how work was allocated after the layoffs.
What the July 2025 report alleged
MobileGamer.biz reported on July 14, 2025, that King, the Microsoft-owned developer of Candy Crush, was preparing to cut around 200 staff. Anonymous sources told reporter Neil Long that affected functions included level design, user research, UX, narrative copywriting, centralized research and QA. One source said, “Now those AI tools are basically replacing the teams.” Another described the copywriting team as losing people because it had AI tools. The article said sources thought the cuts might exceed 200, but it did not provide a final official count or an on-the-record employee account. MobileGamer.biz’s July 2025 report
That is an allegation from anonymous sources, not confirmation from Microsoft or King that AI replaced a particular number of employees. The reported estimate of around 200 cuts should not be read as 200 AI replacements.
What King said about AI after the layoffs
In an interview published April 15, 2026, King vice president and head of live operations Eva Ryott said AI and automation help teams identify levels that may be too difficult or broken so they can fix them before release. She said the tools give designers more capacity for creative work and described AI as “a supporting tool.” Asked whether AI was now running processes previously handled by people, she replied, “No, it’s not accurate,” and said designers remained involved in level-management workflows. MobileGamer.biz’s interview with Eva Ryott
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But when asked whether AI was making up for work left by 200 fewer staff, Ryott declined to discuss King’s organizational strategy. Her comments explain how King publicly described AI-assisted level management; they do not answer whether AI took on work previously done by staff who left.
How the restructuring account differs
Contemporaneous coverage by GameDeveloper.com said Bloomberg first reported around 200 planned redundancies in Barcelona, and that MobileGamer.biz later described impacts in other offices and functions. GameDeveloper.com quoted a King internal memo describing a broader effort to simplify the organization, reduce layers and overlapping responsibilities, and “unlock[] many more AI tools.” The memo, as quoted, did not say that AI would replace specific employees whose jobs were cut. GameDeveloper.com’s coverage of the planned cuts
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The accounts therefore make different claims: anonymous sources alleged specific teams were being displaced by tools they had helped build, while the company executive later described AI supporting designers and did not address post-layoff staffing. The available statements do not resolve the gap between them.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Keep the Microsoft-wide cuts separate
The Associated Press reported in July 2025 that Microsoft announced about 9,000 job cuts across the company. AP noted that Microsoft did not disclose a precise total in its statement and described the cuts as about 4% of the workforce it had a year earlier. That company-wide figure is separate from the around-200 King estimate and does not establish how many King roles, if any, AI directly replaced. Associated Press coverage of Microsoft’s 2025 cuts
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What remains unconfirmed
- King has not publicly confirmed a count of roles directly replaced by AI.
- The sources do not identify which laid-off employees’ duties, if any, were transferred to AI tools.
- Ryott’s description of a workflow covering “21,000 levels” is her account of Candy Crush Saga’s scale, not an independently audited level count. Interview with Eva Ryott
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