Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1547510
13 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 8 NOVEMBER 2026 FEATURE Gaming's office jobs face potential AI shake-up WRITING casino reviews, an- swering players' questions and checking customer documents are among the tasks AI could re- place in Malta's gaming industry, research shows. The analysis carried out by Mal- tese AI and automation company Aigentcy, rates 14 of 15 selected roles within the gaming industry as highly exposed to AI takeover. Simon Bonello, director of Ai- gentcy, says reports of layoffs af- fecting gaming content writers prompted the research. He argues that an industry can grow without needing more people doing the same work, leaving some employ- ees facing a harder transition than rising revenues might suggest. Aigentcy's assessment rates casi- no content writers with the high- est risk at 67 out of 100, followed by support agents at 65, and SEO specialists and KYC analysts at 64. Live casino dealers score consid- erably lower, at 28. The company's head of AI and automation, Prasad Subrahman- ya, says customer service will still require people who can handle situations where technology can- not make the right judgement. "The human connection is still needed," he told MaltaToday, ex- plaining that businesses cannot rely entirely on a bot to deal with customers. What changes within a job Bonello says AI could produce writing with good syntax without the content necessarily making sense, leaving a person responsi- ble for checking it. Subrahmanya similarly argues that businesses still need people to decide what customers want and which prod- ucts are worth building. For KYC analysts, whose work involves customer verification, Ai- gentcy lists tasks including check- ing identity documents, screen- ing sanctions lists and assessing source-of-funds evidence. It suggests AI could help draft case notes and requests for doc- uments, while analysts continue making decisions about risk and escalation. The 15 gaming roles average 57.9%, compared with the nation- al average of 38.8% in Aigentcy's wider workforce analysis. How- ever, the company gives each se- lected role equal weight because it lacks employee counts for each one, so the gaming average does not establish exposure across the sector's workforce. How businesses are using it Asked how many business- es were introducing AI, Bonello does not provide a figure but says all businesses have adopted it in some form or other. Most often AI has been adopted through everyday uses of ChatGPT such as drafting emails or working with spreadsheets. He says some com- panies approached Aigentcy to plan how to use AI, while others sought help after attempts had failed. In some cases, the compa- ny advised that automation would not be financially worthwhile. The Malta Gaming Authority's 2025 annual report describes a machine-learning model for re- viewing operators' Industry Per- formance Returns and an AI tool that flags information for criminal probity screening. Staff review the findings, keeping human over- sight central. The State of AI in Gaming 2026, a study by UNLV's International Gaming Institute and KPMG, which surveyed 83 gambling companies found that 81 respondents answering its technology-use question, 81.5% used generative AI. One in four workers highly exposed to AI Aigentcy's wider analysis places 77,600 workers, or 24.2% of the 320,500 covered, in seven occu- pation groups scoring at least 50. Customer service clerks lead at 65.8, followed by general and key- board clerks at 62.6 and ICT pro- fessionals at 59.2. The analysis uses American job-task descriptions assessed by an AI model and combined with outside research, then matched to Malta's 2025 employment figures for people aged 15–64. Aigentcy estimated AI's poten- tial to help with tasks in Ameri- can job descriptions, drawing on an AI model and other studies. It mapped those jobs to Malta's occupation groups and used lo- cal employment figures to count workers in higher-scoring groups, assuming comparable jobs involve similar work in both countries. Business and administration as- sociate professionals score 58.8, professionals 58.3, ICT techni- cians 57.4, and numerical and material recording clerks 50.7. The two business groups employ 37,700, nearly half the work- ers across the seven top-scoring groups. Other professionals scored low- er: science and engineering scored 49.8; legal, social and cultural professions scored 46.1; teaching scored 42.6; and health scored 38. Excluding the introduction of physical robots, the figures indi- cate potential AI exposure, not predicted job losses. Preparing younger workers Bonello says the research grew out of Aigentcy's commercial work helping businesses intro- duce AI, providing publicity while making information available to workers. He argues that employers must continue investing in junior staff even as AI changes tasks tradi- tionally assigned to beginners, be- cause businesses will need experi- enced employees in future. Subrahmanya and Bonello argue that education should adapt to ensure graduates enter the work- force with relevant skills and that young people should learn how AI works and how it might affect their careers. JULIANA ZAMMIT jzammit@mediatoday.com.mt Left to right: Prasad Subrahmanya Head of AI and Automation at Aigentcy and Simon Bonello Director and Head of Forward Engineering