Take-Two has seemingly laid off an unspecified portion of its AI team, including its Head of Artificial Intelligence

Take-Two Interactive has seemingly laid off its Head of Artificial Intelligence, alongside an unspecified portion of its AI team, just two months after CEO Strauss Zelnick said the Grand Theft Auto 6 publisher was "actively embracing generative AI".

Luke Dicken joined Take-Two as its Head of Artificial Intelligence in January last year following a decade at Zynga, which was acquired by the owner of Rockstar Games in 2022. Less than 18 months into the role, however, Dicken revealed that he and Take-Two were parting ways.

"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 (via Kotaku)." Dicken stated that he would "make a more reflective post" 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:

"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 role at Take-Two is not entirely clear. But according to his LinkedIn page, his position at Zynga shifted from data and strategic scientist to spearheading the company's generative AI strategy, first exploring "the intersection of AI and mobile games", before leading "various initiatives exploring and harnessing modern AI systems such as LLMs and Diffusion Models". This latter role 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 didn't specify the exact number of people leaving Take-Two from his department, or the reasons behind the change. But it's a further twist in Take-Two's curious relationship with generative AI, which has often appeared ambivalent and has become more confounding in recent months.

In March 2025, Strauss Zelnick stated he wasn't "worried about AI creating hits, because it's built on data that already exists", adding the technology was "backwards-looking", which doesn't sound particularly enthusiastic. Later that year, after Take-Two's stock price took a hit following the reveal of AI world model Google Genie, Zelnick further commented that there's "no evidence" generative AI tools can create great entertainment by themselves, specifically pointing out that "generative AI has zero part in what Rockstar Games is building" with Grand Theft Auto 6.

Zelnick has appeared more enthusiastic about the tech in 2026, emphasising the company's exploration of it in a recent investor call. "We're actively embracing generative AI," he said following the company's Q3 financial report, adding that Take Two has "hundreds of pilots and implementations across our company, including with our studios."

That doesn't sound like someone about to let a significant portion of his AI team go. Does this mean the pilot schemes have failed? It's difficult to say. But the broader AI industry has hit some bumps in the road of late. Last month, OpenAI discontinued its Sora video app, with Disney pulling out of a $1 billion investment deal at the same time. And earlier this week Oracle, one of the darlings of the AI boom, was reported to be laying off around 10,000 people.