On November 9, Epic Games released a preview version of its game engine, "Unreal Engine 5.9."
Updated AI integration features; now supports generative AI
Unreal Engine made headlines with the release of version 5.8 in June 2026, which introduced connectivity with interactive AI (Unreal MCP). In this 5.9 preview version, Python scripting and Unreal MCP have been significantly improved, and features related to AI assistance and machine learning have been updated.
AI agents now have access to a wider range of tools within the editor, expanding the scope of supported tasks to include Blueprints, files, and scene captures. Additionally, Unreal Assistant now includes features to hand off tasks to external agents and to set the scope of autonomous operations.
Furthermore, “Unreal Canvas” has been introduced as a new experimental feature. This is a production space accessible via a web app or a dedicated tab within the Unreal Editor, enabling the generation of images, videos, 3D meshes, and more based on textual instructions, reference images, and scenes currently in production.
While the scope of AI involvement is expanding to include asset creation, Epic explains that generated meshes and other assets may require manual adjustments. The company advises users to verify content rights and provenance, review the terms of service for the platforms they use, and confirm data handling policies before using these assets in their projects.
It is worth noting that this preview version was primarily built using AI. To be ready in time for the “Epic AI MegaJam” scheduled to begin on November 12, the team spent about a week porting AI tools developed for UE6 and implementing features to run games and other content in a web browser.
AI writes the code for the browser version, while human engineers issue instructions, review the content, and conduct testing. However, since the quality assurance period was shorter than usual, they recommend testing with a copy of an existing project.
For more details on changes and usage in UE 5.9, please refer to the release notes and the Unreal Canvas overview.
