After widespread DLSS 5 backlash, Nvidia CEO says its critics are "completely wrong"

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has responded to the reaction that DLSS 5 is receiving following its widely memed demo from yesterday at GTC 2026.

After plenty of teasing and building hype, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang gave a keynote at GTC 2026 yesterday, where he announced a range of AI-focused tech. However, most of the internet's attention went towards the DLSS 5 reveal, which was touted as being the company's "most significant breakthrough in computer graphics since the debut of real-time ray tracing in 2018."

The reveal included footage of DLSS 5 in action, where it was attempting to "upgrade" the visuals of characters and environments using real-time AI. Unfortunately for Nvidia, the reaction to the unveiling wasn't the most positive. Since its reveal, a massive backlash hit the technology from both game industry professionals and gamers for the altered 'AI slop' looks of the characters. Now, the Nvidia CEO has responded to these widespread criticisms while speaking to press at a Q&A event at GTC 2026.

"Well, first of all, they're completely wrong," Huang had said in response when Tom's Hardware's Paul Alcorn asked about the widespread criticism. "The reason for that is because, as I have explained very carefully, DLSS 5 fuses controllability of the geometry and textures and everything about the game with generative AI."

Huang went on to reiterate what the company said in its DLSS 5 announcement yesterday, saying that the tech's generative capability "doesn't change the artistic control." It is seemingly possible for the developer to fine-tune how the generative AI performs to match the game's style.

"All of that is in the control — direct control — of the game developer," he had added. "This is very different than generative AI; it’s content-control generative AI. That’s why we call it neural rendering."

So far, Nvidia has confirmed that Bethesda, CAPCOM, Hotta Studio, NetEase, NCSOFT, S-GAME, Tencent, Ubisoft, and Warner Bros. Games are partnering with it for using DLSS 5.

Nvidia has confirmed that the DLSS 5 demos it showed had needed two RTX 5090s to function, with one required for rendering the game and the second running solely focused on the DLSS 5 model. It said the release version will only require a single GPU, however. Real-world performance numbers and supported hardware are yet to be announced for the tech.

Nvidia is slated to launch DLSS 5 sometime this fall.

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Posted Wednesday 18 March 2026 at 12:14 pm AEST (my time).

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