The pinnacle of Take-Two Interactive‘s AI staff has seemingly been laid off, together with an undisclosed variety of different workers engaged on leveraging AI on the firm that owns Rockstar Video games, 2K, and Zynga. The reorg comes regardless of CEO Strauss Zelnick saying the parent-publisher is “actively embracing generative AI.”
“It’s actually disappointing that I’ve to share with you that my time with T2 – and that of my staff – has come to an finish,” Luke Dicken, who turned Take-Two’s head of AI in early 2025 after a decade at Zynga, wrote on LinkedIn on Thursday. He added, “We’ve been growing innovative know-how to help recreation improvement now for 7 years. These people know tips on how to match innovation and novel drawback fixing approaches with sturdy product design chops to create methods that empower folks all through the event workflow.”
A lot of Take-Two’s AI staff seems to have been established out of Zynga’s present utilized AI division. Take-Two acquired the cell gaming firm in 2022 for $12.7 billion however the partnership has struggled to generate new hits. Many trade colleagues of Dicken’s shared their shock on the information of the layoffs.
Take-Two declined to remark.
Final month, the corporate tried to distance itself from instruments like Google’s Genie after its inventory value took successful from buyers involved that generative AI would permit anybody to make world-class video games with out large improvement groups. “Genie is early in its iteration at this level and making an attempt to make a comparability to a recreation engine is simply actually—they’re not even in the identical ballpark. Genie isn’t a recreation engine,” Take-Two president Karl Slatoff mentioned on the time.
Whereas CEO Straus Zelnick has repeatedly poured chilly water on the thought that genAI might make the following Grand Theft Auto, he lately confirmed the corporate is all-in on exploring tips on how to incorporate the know-how into recreation improvement. “Because it occurs now, we’re actively embracing generative AI,” he mentioned throughout a latest investor name. “Now we have lots of of pilots and implementations throughout our firm, together with with our studios, and we’re seeing alternatives to drive efficiencies, cut back prices, and create the chance to do what digital know-how has at all times allowed, which is, mundane duties grow to be simpler and fewer related, which frees up our creators to do the extra fascinating duties of constructing very good leisure.”
However the trade’s embrace of AI has additionally sparked a backlash amongst gamers. Nvidia took an enormous hit in March when it revealed how its upcoming DLSS 5 graphics tech would sloppify NPCs in well-liked video games. Even Arc Raiders, which bought hundreds of thousands of copies and received essential acclaim regardless of NPCs voiced by genAI, lately began changing these synthetic voices with actual human recordings.