[1][2] He is one of the leading researchers within player affective modelling and adaptive content generation for games.

[8] In Experience-driven Procedural Content Generation, a model of player experience is used as an objective function to create game content that is adapted to the player's preference and/or behavior.

[11] Some of his research on computational creativity has also focused on how to create content across multiple facets of games.

[12] Yannakakis' research has attracted attention from Danish newspapers and TV.

[14] In 2018, Yannakakis (together with Julian Togelius) co-authored a textbook on artificial intelligence and games, simply called Artificial Intelligence and Games[15][16] and published by Springer Nature.