Itch.io removes AI spam and gives users a NoAI search filter

Itch.io has removed what it called “a couple terabytes” of AI-generated spam and introduced a NoAI search filter, allowing visitors to narrow results to projects whose creators have explicitly said they did not use generative AI in the creative process. The move does not prohibit disclosed AI use on the indie marketplace, but targets mass-produced, low-value uploads that breach its existing spam rules.

The platform said it had begun taking down thousands of AI-made games, assets and other marketplace items. Its quality guidelines prohibit creators from using automated systems to mass-produce product pages, and classify mass-produced automatically generated or AI-generated pages as spam that may be removed from browse and search pages.

The filter appears under the AI Assistance tab on Itch.io’s Browse page. It builds on a disclosure system that assigns an AI Generated tag when a creator says a project contains generative-AI material, and a NoAI tag when the creator explicitly says it does not. Itch.io has described the NoAI label as a convenience tag, rather than a strict logical negative of the AI Generated tag.

As reported on Oct. 31, a sharp rise in new itch.io game pages had made hand-crafted work harder to find. The company said daily page creation had climbed from about 3,000 in August to nearly 8,000 in October, without a proportional rise in downloads, purchases, sales or revenue. In one observation reported by Game Developer, applying the NoAI filter cut displayed results from about 1.8 million to about 432,000.

Itch.io permits generative-AI content where it is clearly disclosed and adds substantial value to the user experience. Its guidelines require creators to identify whether AI was used for graphics, sound, text and dialogue, or code, while conventional game systems such as NPC pathfinding, procedural-level generation and dynamic difficulty adjustment do not require disclosure.

The marketplace says it is strictly enforcing disclosure on asset, soundtrack, physical-game, comic and book pages because of legal ambiguity around rights in generative-AI material. Pages that fail to provide required disclosures can be delisted from discovery features. Itch.io hosts more than 1 million projects and says its discovery tools serve millions of monthly users.

The new filtering capability addresses a demand from users who want to avoid generative-AI work, while stopping short of the complete ban sought by some. Such a ban would require the platform to determine what constitutes an AI-made game, from a title built entirely with AI to one that used it at a limited stage of development.

The policy distinguishes itch.io from Steam, which also requires AI disclosures but does not offer an equivalent straightforward filter for users. Polygon reported that 54.6% of titles added to Steam in October carried an AI disclosure label, up from 18.3% of titles added during 2025.