Itch.io Expands AI Disclosure Filters to Search Results

itch.io announced on November 3, 2026 that it is adding generative-AI disclosure filtering to more parts of its site, including search results. The accompanying image shows a search-results page with the No AI option selected, extending the marketplace’s disclosure-based discovery controls to a central way users find games and other projects.

How the No AI Filter Works

The underlying system dates to a November 20, 2024 developer update by itch.io administrator leafo. A field on project edit pages asks whether the project contains the results of generative AI. Answering yes applies the AI Generated tag and relevant sub-tags for Graphics, Sound, Text & Dialog, and Code. Answering no applies No AI. Creators are instructed to complete the disclosure form instead of manually adding those automatic tags.

The filter has an important limitation. Leafo explained that No AI is not a strict negative of AI Generated: it applies only when a creator explicitly answers no, and pages without a completed disclosure do not receive it. Abusing the tagging feature to lie makes a page ineligible for indexing on discovery pages. A No AI search therefore relies on creator declarations, not an independent determination by itch.io that every listed project is AI-free.

Disclosure Requirements Expand

In related posts on November 3, itch.io made AI disclosure mandatory when creating or editing pages for tabletop or physical games, books, comics, and soundtracks. Those categories join game assets, which had carried the requirement for the preceding two years. The content-creator quality guidelines tie strict enforcement across these page types to legal ambiguity around rights associated with generative-AI content. Failure to tag them may result in delisting.

Delisting removes a page from itch.io’s discovery index, but the page can remain accessible through a direct URL and the creator’s profile. Projects indicating generative-AI use appear on the AI Assisted browse page. Disclosure therefore supplies both a user filter and a categorized browsing destination, while enforcement can remove a page’s discovery placement.

The policy’s definition is narrower than every use of artificial intelligence in a game. It covers systems that create text, images, or music by learning from large datasets, including large language and image-generation models. Traditional NPC pathfinding, enemy behavior, procedural level generation, fuzzy logic, dynamic difficulty adjustment, and dynamic music do not require disclosure when they use self-contained algorithms without external large datasets.

AI-Spam Cleanup Runs Alongside Filtering

The filter expansion accompanied a separate cleanup earlier on November 3. itch.io said it had deleted a couple of terabytes of material it described as “AI slop.” Another post warned against uploading 10 terabytes of poorly optimized AI-generated models and noted that the quality guidelines had contained an AI-spam clause for more than two years.

That clause treats automated mass production of product pages as spam and permits their removal from browse and search. It covers projects predominantly created by algorithms or AI with minimal human intervention, randomly generated content with little or no curated design, and repeated generated iterations of essentially the same material. The cleanup and the filter do different work: the anti-spam rule targets mass production, while disclosure classifies a project’s generative-AI content.

On November 1, 2026, itch.io reported that the number of game pages created per day had doubled over the preceding two months. That increase supplies scale context for the subsequent changes, which combine user-controlled filtering with enforcement against automated page production and stricter disclosure in additional categories.

The practical consequence is that a No AI result is only as broad as the declarations behind it. Projects without an answered disclosure do not carry the tag, while false tagging can cost discovery eligibility. Expanding the filter into search gives those creator answers more weight in what users see, alongside separate rules aimed at keeping mass-generated uploads out of browse and search results.