Krafton names Kangwook Lee as chief AI officer as PUBG publisher keeps investing in game AI

Krafton has appointed a new chief AI officer, naming Kangwook Lee to the role. Lee has been at the PUBG publisher since 2022, where he’s led Krafton AI.

In Krafton’s announcement, the company says Lee has been working on its AI research setup across areas like machine learning, language models, natural language processing, reinforcement learning, and multimodal models. Krafton also pointed to his academic background, saying he’s authored dozens of papers accepted at major AI conferences including NeurIPS, ICML, and ICLR.

Krafton also highlighted a project it says Lee led with NVIDIA focused on “co-playable characters,” described as AI companions that can interact with players in real time. The company didn’t share timing or which games this kind of tech might show up in.

As for what changes with the new title, Krafton says the goal is to keep building out its game AI R&D framework and tie that work into its longer-term business plans. Internally, it’s framing its AI strategy around improving gameplay, boosting operational efficiency, and finding new growth areas.

The move comes shortly after Krafton reported its 2025 earnings, where it said revenue passed $2.05 billion for the first time and credited PUBG for “double-digit growth.”

AI seems to be something Krafton has been highlighting quite a bit over the last year. While AI has helped create assets for games, it hasn’t played a huge role in any major title yet.