Krafton appoints new chief AI officer to “further enhance its game AI R&D framework”

PUBG publisher Krafton has appointed a new chief AI officer.

Kangwook Lee – who has been working at Krafton as its head of Krafton AI since 2022 – has been focused on reshaping Krafton’s AI research framework to “enhance the company’s innovation capabilities, leading R&D in key AI domains such as machine learning (ML), language models (LM), natural language processing (NLP), reinforcement learning (RL), and multimodal models.”

With 57 authored papers accepted at leading global AI conferences, including NeurIPS, ICML, and ICLR, Krafton said Lee has demonstrated “proven success,” including “spearhead[ing] a project at Krafton in collaboration with NVIDIA to develop “co-playable characters” and enable “real-time interaction” between players and AI companions.

“By appointing Lee as CAIO, Krafton plans to further enhance its game AI R&D framework and strengthen its mid-to-long-term business strategy built on foundational technologies,” the company said in a press release. “The company will also continue to refine AI as a tool that amplifies developer creativity in service of enhanced gameplay, with the singular aim of delivering better experiences for players.

“Under this direction, Krafton’s AI strategy will be operated across three pillars: 1) Elevating Gameplay, 2) Enhancing Operational Efficiency, and 3) Securing New Growth Drivers,” the company added.

Krafton’s earnings in 2025 marked “an all-time high” this month, with revenues surpassing $2.05 billion for the first time in the company’s history. In its latest financial results, the Korean publisher experienced a 22.8% increase in revenue driven by its PUBG franchise, which saw “double-digit growth.” Operating profit also increased, reaching $717.5 million.