Take-Two has seemingly laid off an unspecified portion of its AI staff, together with its Head of Artificial Intelligence

Take-Two Interactive has seemingly laid off its Head of Artificial Intelligence, alongside an unspecified portion of its AI staff, simply two months after CEO Strauss Zelnick stated the Grand Theft Auto 6 writer was “actively embracing generative AI”.

Luke Dicken joined Take-Two as its Head of Artificial Intelligence in January final 12 months following a decade at Zynga, which was acquired by the proprietor of Rockstar Games in 2022. Less than 18 months into the function, nevertheless, Dicken revealed that he and Take-Two had been parting methods.

“It’s truly disappointing that I have to share with you that my time with T2—and that of my team—has come to an end,” Dicken wrote in a LinkedIn post (by way of Kotaku).” Dicken stated that he would “make a extra reflective publish” upon his time at Take-Two at a later date, but for now was focussed on helping support the members of his team also affected by the shakeup:

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“We’ve been developing cutting edge technology to support game development now for 7 years. These folks know how to match innovation and novel problem-solving approaches with strong product design chops to create systems that empower people throughout the development workflow.”

The nature of Dicken’s function at Take-Two is just not solely clear. But based on his LinkedIn page, his place at Zynga shifted from information and strategic scientist to spearheading the corporate’s generative AI technique, first exploring “the intersection of AI and mobile games”, earlier than main “various initiatives exploring and harnessing modern AI systems such as LLMs and Diffusion Models”. This latter function apparently included “ensuring that all executive stakeholders across the business, including Take Two C-suite, are fully briefed on the actionable opportunities as well as the legitimate concerns”.

Dicken did not specify the precise variety of individuals leaving Take-Two from his division, or the explanations behind the change. But it is a additional twist in Take-Two’s curious relationship with generative AI, which has typically appeared ambivalent and has turn into extra confounding in latest months.

In March 2025, Strauss Zelnick said he wasn’t “worried about AI creating hits, because it’s built on data that already exists”, including the expertise was “backwards-looking”, which does not sound significantly enthusiastic. Later that 12 months, after Take-Two’s inventory value took a success following the reveal of AI world mannequin Google Genie, Zelnick additional commented that there is “no evidence” generative AI instruments can create nice leisure by themselves, particularly mentioning that “generative AI has zero part in what Rockstar Games is building” with Grand Theft Auto 6.

Zelnick has appeared extra enthusiastic concerning the tech in 2026, emphasising the corporate’s exploration of it in a latest investor name. “We’re actively embracing generative AI,” he stated following the corporate’s Q3 monetary report, including that Take Two has “hundreds of pilots and implementations across our company, including with our studios.”

That does not sound like somebody about to let a good portion of his AI staff go. Does this imply the pilot schemes have failed? It’s troublesome to say. But the broader AI business has hit some bumps within the highway of late. Last month, OpenAI discontinued its Sora video app, with Disney pulling out of a $1 billion funding deal on the similar time. And earlier this week Oracle, one of many darlings of the AI growth, was reported to be shedding round 10,000 individuals.