Key Takeaways

• Roblox leverages AI to accelerate game development, automate asset creation, and scale personalized user experiences.
• AI tools like Cube 3D and Roblox Assistant help creators build faster, increasing platform activity and bookings.
• Roblox runs over 250 AI systems weekly, managing 4B chat completions and 70B queries to improve engagement and safety.
• With Roblox as its top holding, the VanEck Video Gaming & eSports ETF (ESPO) is positioned to capture Roblox’s AI-driven growth.

Roblox Stock Gains Momentum as AI Transforms Gaming

Roblox is not a single video game. It is a platform that hosts millions of user-created games and virtual experiences, all built by independent developers using Roblox’s proprietary engine and tools. Players create an avatar, explore 3D worlds, and interact socially through games, events, and virtual items.

The core of Roblox’s strategy lies in its user-generated content (UGC) model. Instead of developing its own games, Roblox provides the infrastructure, including a game engine, discovery platform, and monetization tools. This enables creators to build and publish their own games and virtual goods.

Roblox Revenue Streams:

Virtual Currency (Robux) Purchases

• Players purchase Robux, a digital currency, to buy virtual goods like avatar outfits, power-ups, or access to premium content.
• Roblox takes a platform fee while developers earn a share of Robux spent in their games.

Developer Exchange (DevEx) Program

• Developers who accumulate Robux can convert them into real-world currency through Roblox’s DevEx. In 2024, Roblox paid out over $740 million to creators.^*
• This incentivizes high-quality game development and helps retain top talent on the platform.

Advertising and Brand Partnerships

• Roblox partners with major brands like Nike, Netflix, and the NFL to create branded experiences, sponsored events, and in-game items that drive engagement and monetization.
• These activations are often immersive, including virtual concerts, scavenger hunts, or product launches inside Roblox worlds.

Unlocking Growth Through AI Creation Tools

Roblox’s revenue model is tightly linked to developer success. The more immersive, diverse, and engaging the user-generated content, the more time and money users spend on the platform. This is where AI is creating real financial leverage.

In March 2025, Roblox open-sourced Cube 3D, a 1.8 billion-parameter foundation model^* that allows developers to generate 3D assets from a simple text prompt. Paired with Mesh Generation APIs, creators can now accelerate asset production dramatically, reducing development cycles and costs.

On the coding side, Roblox Assistant, an AI-powered code-completion and debugging tool, has moved beyond beta. It now includes real-time prompt editing, undo and redo functionality, script recommendations, and diff review. Developers no longer need to be full-time engineers to publish complex, multiplayer-ready games.

These tools directly impact platform velocity. More creators producing high-quality games leads to more daily active users (DAUs), more virtual currency transactions, and ultimately higher bookings. AI is powering a scalable content engine at minimal incremental cost.

AI at Scale, Behind the Scenes of the Roblox Platform

It’s easy to think of AI in games as something flashy, like chatbots or voice assistants, but much of Roblox’s AI power sits behind the scenes, quietly improving the user experience at scale.

Over the past year, Roblox has built a massive AI backbone to support its global platform. By late 2024, the company had over 250 different AI systems^* running simultaneously, helping with everything from personalized game recommendations to moderating content and powering developer tools. These systems run across thousands of high-powered computers in data centers and the cloud.

Every week, Roblox’s AI infrastructure handles^*:

• 4 billion AI-generated text completions, used for in-game chat, code suggestions, and content filtering.
• 1 billion personalized experiences, including game suggestions, avatar customization, and social recommendations.
• 70 billion daily smart queries, helping the system understand player behavior and serve up relevant content.

This scale allows Roblox to offer each user a tailored experience, and gives developers the tools they need to reach the right audience.

Building AI tools is one thing, but running them at this scale for nearly 100 million daily users is something few companies in the world can do. It gives Roblox a real edge, enabling faster, smarter, and safer platform experiences that keep users engaged and spending. It also creates a significant barrier to entry. Without comparable infrastructure and data, it is incredibly difficult for competitors to match what Roblox delivers, especially as AI becomes central to discovery, creation, and moderation.

Safety, Moderation, and Platform Trust

Roblox’s user base includes millions of minors, making trust and safety absolutely essential. In July 2025, the company announced that its AI moderation system now processes 6.1 billion chat messages per day across 25 languages^*. It uses transformer-based AI models running on GPUs to filter harmful content in real time. Its voice moderation system has improved message detection accuracy by 92% over the prior version.

These tools are critical, especially as Roblox expands into older age groups and adds more real-time communication to its platform.

Strong moderation supports user retention, ensures compliance with global regulations, and helps Roblox maintain its reputation with parents, educators, and advertisers. That trust supports the long-term health of the platform and its revenue model.

Roblox Performance Speaks for Itself

Roblox’s business performance clearly reflects the impact of its AI investments. In Q1 2025, the company reported^*:

• Bookings of $1.21 billion, up +31% YoY.
• 97.8 million DAUs, up +22% YoY.
• $4.5 billion in cash on hand, enabling continued investment in tools, infrastructure, and safety.

Management directly credited this growth to AI innovations and the expansion of its developer ecosystem.

This is a real-world case of AI creating measurable business value. Roblox is using AI to improve productivity, reduce friction, scale up services, and convert user engagement into higher revenue.

What It Means for ESPO Investors

The VanEck Video Gaming & eSports ETF (ESPO) is built to provide targeted, high-conviction exposure to the most influential companies in gaming and interactive entertainment. Unlike broader tech ETFs, ESPO focuses on pure-play companies that derive at least 50% of their revenue from video games or esports.

With Roblox as the largest holding, ESPO is well-positioned to capture the upside from the company’s AI-driven growth. The ETF’s market-cap weighted design allows leaders like Roblox to drive performance when they execute — and Roblox is executing.

For Roblox, AI is not a future bet or side feature. It is a core operating strategy, transforming how games are built, how players interact, and how the business scales. As long as Roblox continues to integrate AI into every layer of its ecosystem, it remains a key growth engine for the platform and a compelling contributor to ESPO’s long-term investment case.

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