GTA VI maker Take-Two lays off its entire AI team after saying it was "actively embracing" the tech

Take-Two Interactive, the company behind Grand Theft Auto VI, has laid off its head of AI and an unknown number of team members. The news surfaced through a LinkedIn post by Luke Dicken, who had served as Take-Two's head of AI since January 2025, after spending over a decade at Zynga—the mobile gaming company Take-Two acquired for $12.7 billion in 2022."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, adding that he'd appreciate help finding his former colleagues new roles. Several other staff, including Take-Two's former director of AI research and two senior data scientists, later confirmed their own departures in separate LinkedIn posts. Take-Two declined to comment.

The team had been at it for seven years

Dicken noted the group had spent seven years developing tools designed to support game development—covering areas like procedural content, machine learning, and systems to "empower people throughout the development workflow."

Much of the team appears to have grown out of Zynga's applied AI department before being folded into Take-Two's broader operation.The timing is what makes this unusual. Just this past February, CEO Strauss Zelnick told investors the company was "actively embracing generative AI," pointing to hundreds of ongoing pilots and implementations across its studios. A senior director on the team wrote that the cuts came because of "shifting priorities from upper management."

Zelnick has always been more cautious than most

Zelnick was never the loudest AI booster in the room. He repeatedly pushed back on the idea that generative tools could produce hits—calling the notion that anyone could push a button and generate the next GTA "laughable." He also confirmed that GenAI played "zero part" in what Rockstar is building for GTA VI, describing those worlds as handcrafted, street by street.Whether this signals a broader retreat from AI at Take-Two or simply a restructuring is unclear. But cutting the team responsible for building the company's AI infrastructure—while GTA VI is still months away—is a move worth watching.