Krafton appoints Kangwook Lee as chief AI officer

• Krafton doubles down on AI-driven gameplay and operational efficiency.
• AI strategy is built around gameplay, efficiency and new growth drivers.

Korean publisher Krafton has appointed head of Krafton AI Kangwook Lee as its new chief AI officer. 

In his new role, Lee will lead the company's AI research and long-term innovation strategy. The appointment recognises his AI expertise, leadership, and years of research and project experience in AI technology development. He has been leading Krafton AI since 2022.

With Lee’s appointment, Krafton aims to strengthen its game AI R&D and long-term strategy around core technologies, while using AI to support developer creativity and improve player experiences. 

The company's AI approach will focus on three pillars: elevating gameplay, enhancing operational efficiency, and securing new growth drivers.

"Krafton uses AI as a tool to amplify human imagination and creativity, not replace it," said Lee. "Rooted in our core gaming business, Krafton will continue to explore future possibilities backed by AI innovation and data for long-term growth and player value."

Long-term strategy

Lee's work spans deep learning and machine learning research. He has restructured Krafton’s AI research framework to strengthen innovation, leading R&D across machine learning, language models, NLP, reinforcement learning and multimodal AI, with 57 papers accepted at major conferences. 

Moreover, Lee has led major AI initiatives at Krafton, including a 2025 collaboration with NVIDIA to develop co-playable characters that enable real-time player and AI interaction, and the company’s proprietary AI foundation model project. 

He recently stepped down from his tenured academic role to focus fully on advancing Krafton’s AI R&D, long-term innovation strategy and future areas such as physical AI.