As I look ahead to 2026, one of the most common and emotionally charged questions I hear about online poker is this: can the game survive the rise of AI?

2025 has arguably been a significant year yet for advances in artificial intelligence, and alongside that progress has come a familiar refrain: “online poker is dead.” The concern is understandable. Bots and real-time assistance (RTAs) represent a genuine threat if left unchecked, and anyone who plays or operates online player-vs-player games, would be naïve to dismiss that risk outright.

I don’t. The possibility of widespread bot abuse concerns me, as it should concern operators, regulators, and other players alike. But acknowledging the risk is not the same as conceding defeat. When you step back and look at the broader landscape of the competitive online ecosystems, a more balanced, and ultimately more constructive picture begins to emerge.

Poker Isn’t Alone in This Fight

This broader perspective matters, because the challenge posed by bots and AI-assisted play is not unique to poker.

AI-assisted humans, and fully automated opponents, are now a reality across virtually every competitive online environment. From large-scale multiplayer games to strategy titles and regulated gambling platforms, the incentives are always the same: automation scales, never gets tired, and can be optimized relentlessly.

The reason this gives me some comfort is simple. Poker is not solving this problem in isolation.

Industries far larger than ours, with enormous financial, regulatory, and reputational exposure, are investing heavily in detection, prevention, and enforcement. Where there is sustained pressure, there is sustained innovation. Many of the most promising advances in this space are being driven well beyond poker, and the entire industry stands to benefit as those solutions mature.

Responsibility Still Matters

This shared challenge, however, doesn’t absolve poker platforms of the responsibility. If anything, it raises the bar.

As builders and operators of online poker ecosystems, we can’t simply wait for external breakthroughs, or rely on industry momentum alone. Protecting game integrity requires deliberate investment, continuous iteration, and the willingness to scrutinize our own assumptions.

We actively evaluate emerging third-party solutions, and when credible tools appear, we are eager to test and integrate them. But our approach is not passive. Expecting “someone else” to solve the problem is not a strategy.

What Can Be Done Today

The absence of a silver-bullet solution does not mean players should avoid online poker; particularly in regulated markets where scrutiny around data analysis, player behavior, and financial flows, is both expected and enforced.

Modern detection does not rely on any single signal. Instead, it depends on correlating many.

At a high level, effective anti-cheating systems combine behavioral consistency analysis, temporal patterns, technical integrity checks, and transactional review. Players who perform far outside statistical norms, exhibit unnatural regularity over long periods, or demonstrate behavior inconsistent with human decision-making tend to stand out when viewed across sufficiently large datasets.

Just as importantly, detection is not limited to what happens in real time.

Operators have the advantage of hindsight. Significant wins, transfers, and withdrawals can be examined in context, tracing not only individual outcomes, but relationships between accounts and historical behavior patterns that are impossible to evaluate at the table itself.

This approach is resource-intensive; but when taken seriously, it is effective.

AI as a Defensive Tool

Something that’s frequently overlooked in the bot discussion, is that cheaters and platforms operate under very different constraints.

Cheaters must remain undetected continuously, in real time, across every decision they make. Operators, by contrast, are free to analyze retroactively, and holistically.

This is where AI becomes part of the solution rather than just part of the problem. Advanced models excel at pattern recognition across large, multi-dimensional datasets, often identifying correlated signals that would be difficult or impossible for humans to spot alone.

By augmenting experienced fraud and integrity teams with AI-driven tools, both internally developed and externally sourced, operators can gain a meaningful edge. Human judgment remains essential, however, AI dramatically expands the surface area that can be monitored effectively and consistently.

Incentives, Regulation, and Why They Matter

All of this only works if incentives are aligned correctly.

Regulated markets exist precisely because incentives matter. When oversight is real, reporting obligations are enforced, and licensing risk is meaningful, operators are structurally motivated to invest in long-term game integrity, rather than short-term liquidity.

The uncomfortable reality is that in poorly aligned environments, enforcement can drift. Marginally winning accounts at low and mid-stakes may not trigger community outrage, or generate headline scandals. Yet over time, they erode trust just as surely as any high-profile incident.

This is why we believe there is a strong case for specialized B2B poker platforms which focus exclusively on regulated markets. When an operator’s success is tied to compliance, transparency, and sustained player confidence, detecting unfair play isn’t discretionary – it’s foundational.

Looking Toward 2026

So what does all of this mean as we move towards 2026?

I don’t believe the future of online poker hinges on a single breakthrough. Instead, it will be shaped by a series of trade-offs the industry must navigate thoughtfully: convenience versus integrity, anonymity versus accountability, and frictionless play versus demonstrably fair outcomes.

We will almost certainly see new layers of protection emerge. Some will be driven by gaming, while others will be driven by adjacent industries, grappling with the same challenges. And over time, players may come to accept modest inconveniences in exchange for stronger assurances of fairness, much the same as two-factor authentication and other safeguards have become normal across the internet.

Online poker has always evolved alongside technology. The question isn’t whether AI changes the game. It already has. The real question is how our industry will evolve our safeguards just as quickly.

At PokerLab, we take this responsibility seriously.  Not as a future promise, but as an ongoing commitment.