The top of Take-Two Interactive‘s AI crew has seemingly been laid off, together with an undisclosed variety of different staff 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 crew – 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 creating innovative know-how to help sport improvement now for 7 years. These people know learn how to match innovation and novel downside fixing approaches with robust product design chops to create programs that empower individuals all through the event workflow.”
A lot of Take-Two’s AI crew seems to have been established out of Zynga’s present utilized AI division. Take-Two acquired the cellular gaming firm in 2022 for $12.7 billion however the partnership has struggled to generate new hits. Many business 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 traders 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 sport engine is simply actually—they’re not even in the identical ballpark. Genie just isn’t a sport engine,” Take-Two president Karl Slatoff mentioned on the time.
Whereas CEO Straus Zelnick has repeatedly poured chilly water on the concept genAI might make the following Grand Theft Auto, he lately confirmed the corporate is all-in on exploring learn how to incorporate the know-how into sport improvement. “Because it occurs now, we’re actively embracing generative AI,” he mentioned throughout a latest investor name. “We now have lots of of pilots and implementations throughout our firm, together with with our studios, and we’re seeing alternatives to drive efficiencies, scale back prices, and create the chance to do what digital know-how has at all times allowed, which is, mundane duties turn out to be simpler and fewer related, which frees up our creators to do the extra attention-grabbing duties of creating excellent leisure.”
However the business’s embrace of AI has additionally sparked a backlash amongst gamers. Nvidia took a giant 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 thousands and thousands of copies and received crucial acclaim regardless of NPCs voiced by genAI, lately began changing these synthetic voices with actual human recordings.
