Take-Two Interactive laid off its entire AI division on April 3, roughly seven months before Rockstar Games ships Grand Theft Auto VI on November 19. [1] Head of AI Luke Dicken — who joined Take-Two in January 2025 after running applied AI at Take-Two subsidiary Zynga — announced the cuts on LinkedIn: "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." [2]

Senior director of AI research Jason Leon and at least four additional team members confirmed their layoffs in separate LinkedIn posts. [3] The division had spent seven years building procedural-content and machine-learning tools for game development, originally inside Zynga, then elevated to the parent-company level under Dicken in 2025. Take-Two has declined to comment on the timing or on whether any AI functions were retained inside Rockstar or 2K Games, the company's two tentpole studios.

CEO Strauss Zelnick has been publicly skeptical that generative AI can produce a commercial hit. On a February earnings call he told investors the company was "actively embracing AI" with "hundreds of pilots and implementations" across its studios — but last year he called the idea of AI creating a title like Grand Theft Auto "a laughable notion." [4] Rockstar has publicly stated generative AI has no role in GTA 6 development; the studio's worlds, Take-Two said in February, are "handcrafted." The question the cuts raise is not whether Rockstar uses AI on GTA 6. It is whether Take-Two still has a centralized AI research function by the time the sequel ships — and what that says about where the hit-making gaming industry has landed on the technology.

-- CAMILLE BEAUMONT, Los Angeles