Take-Two lays off AI team head and staff weeks after CEO said it was embracing generative AI
11 Sources
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Take-Two laid off the head its AI division and an undisclosed number of staff
Take-Two, the owner of Grand Theft Auto developer Rockstar Games, has seemingly laid off the head of its AI division, Luke Dicken, and several staff members working under him. "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,"
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Take-Two lays off AI team members weeks after "embracing" generative AI
Serving tech enthusiasts for over 25 years. TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust. What just happened? Almost two months since its CEO announced that Take-Two Interactive was "actively embracing generative AI," the owner of Rockstar Games has suddenly laid off a portion of its AI
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Take-Two lays off AI team
Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of GTA developer Rockstar Games, has reportedly laid off its AI team, including its head of AI. Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick has previously plainly stated that AI is incapable of creativity of its own, but this is his strongest message yet that Take-Two's
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Take-Two has seemingly laid off an unspecified portion of its AI team, including its Head of Artificial Intelligence
Luke Dicken, who previously spent a decade with Zynga, says his time with the company "has come to an end". 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
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Take-Two lays off its head of AI and several team members just two months after the CEO said it was embracing Gen AI
In recent weeks, the generative AI debate has had the gaming industry in a chokehold. NVIDIA faced significant backlash over its DLSS 5 technology, which poured AI slop onto some of our favorite Capcom characters. Meanwhile, studios like Nexon have advocated for AI, describing it as a redesign for
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Take-Two Reshuffles Its AI Team: 'It's Truly Disappointing'
The AI division was working on 'cutting edge technology' to support game development The head of Take-Two Interactive's AI team has seemingly been laid off, along with an undisclosed number of other employees working on leveraging AI at the company that owns Rockstar Games, 2K, and Zynga. The
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Take-Two Interactive Lays Off AI Team, Including Head of AI
Rockstar Games parent Take-Two Interactive has reportedly laid off its artificial intelligence team, including its head of AI. The number of employees impacted by the cuts remains unspecified, but as per the former Take-Two AI chief, the AI team at the company has been let go. Take-Two CEO Strauss
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GTA 6 parent company Take-Two reportedly lays off its AI-focused staff: "Shifting priorities from upper management have impacted my team"
The Rockstar Games and 2K Games owner previously said it was embracing the tech Take-Two Interactive - the parent company behind Rockstar Games (GTA 6) and 2K Games (Borderlands, Bioshock) - has reportedly laid off its head of AI and multiple team members directly involved with the
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Take-Two Has Reportedly Laid Off its AI Team, Including the Department Head
Spotted by Kotaku (via PC Gamer), the now-former head of AI for Take-Two, Luke Dicken, shared on his personal LinkedIn page, "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's comments seem to imply that his entire
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GTA 6 Publisher Take-Two Parts Ways with AI Head Before Game Release
Take-Two has yet to issue an official statement on these layoffs. As artificial intelligence rears its generative head in game development, Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of GTA 6 creator Rockstar, has seemingly reshuffled its in-house AI department. The company's CEO, Strauss Zenlick,
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Take-Two Scales Back AI Ambitions With Unexpected Team Layoffs Amid GTA 6 Buzz
Ahead of GTA 6 Launch, Take-Two Makes Surprise AI Team Cuts After Earlier Support for the Technology Take-Two Interactive has made a surprise move by laying off employees from its artificial intelligence team. The decision caught many people off guard. The company had always talked positive things
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Take-Two Interactive has laid off Luke Dicken, its Head of Artificial Intelligence, along with an undisclosed number of AI team members. The timing is striking—just two months ago, CEO Strauss Zelnick announced the Rockstar Games parent company was actively embracing generative AI. The move raises questions about the gaming industry's AI strategy as the company speeds toward the Grand Theft Auto VI release.
Take-Two Layoffs Strike AI Team Despite Recent AI Embrace
Take-Two Interactive, the Rockstar Games parent company, has laid off Luke Dicken, its Head of Artificial Intelligence, along with several members of its AI team. The news emerged through a LinkedIn post where Dicken shared that his time with the company "has come to an end," expressing disappointment about both his departure and that of his team
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. When contacted for confirmation, Take-Two declined to comment on the Take-Two layoffs affecting its AI division1
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Source: Beebom
The timing appears particularly unusual given that CEO Strauss Zelnick announced just two months earlier that the company was "actively embracing generative AI" to "drive efficiencies" and "reduce costs"
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. This contradiction between public statements about embracing Gen AI and the sudden dismantling of the AI team has left industry observers puzzled about the company's actual AI strategy moving forward.Seven Years of Cutting Edge Technology for Game Development
Dicken's LinkedIn post revealed that his team had been "developing cutting edge technology to support game development" for seven years
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. The team's expertise spanned critical areas including procedural content for games, machine learning, and AI in game development1
. According to Dicken, these specialists knew "how to match innovation and novel problem-solving approaches with strong product design chops to create systems that empower people throughout the development workflow"4
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Source: TechSpot
Before becoming Take-Two's Head of Artificial Intelligence in January 2024, Dicken spent a decade at Zynga, which Take-Two acquired for $12.7 billion in 2022
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. Kotaku reports that much of Take-Two's AI team appears to have been established from Zynga's existing applied AI department2
. At Zynga, Dicken had spearheaded the company's generative AI strategy, exploring "the intersection of AI and mobile games" and leading initiatives involving LLMs and Diffusion Models4
.Contradictory Signals From Leadership
The gaming industry has watched Strauss Zelnick deliver mixed messages about AI tools over the past year. In March 2024, he stated he wasn't "worried about AI creating hits, because it's built on data that already exists," calling the technology "backwards-looking"
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. When Google's Project Genie announcement caused Take-Two's stock price to fall to an 11-month low, Zelnick dismissed concerns, saying there's "no evidence" generative AI tools can create great entertainment by themselves4
.Zelnick has consistently emphasized that generative AI has "zero part" in what Rockstar Games is building with Grand Theft Auto VI
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. Yet during a recent investor call following the company's Q3 financial report, he claimed Take-Two had "hundreds of pilots and implementations across our company, including with our studios"4
. The CEO has even framed AI as having a positive effect on employment, arguing that "generative AI will not reduce employment, it will increase employment" because "technology always increases productivity"1
.Related Stories
A Reversal in Industry Trends
While most gaming industry layoffs have been justified by companies replacing human workers with AI-generated content, Take-Two's decision to remove the very people responsible for implementing AI represents a notable reversal
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. Recent cases like Kingdom Come: Deliverance II developer Warhorse Studios replacing a translator with AI tools have become commonplace, making this move all the more striking2
.The broader AI sector has encountered turbulence recently. OpenAI discontinued its Sora video app last month, while Disney pulled out of a $1 billion investment deal
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. Oracle, another AI industry leader, reportedly laid off around 10,000 people4
. The gaming community's backlash against NVIDIA over DLSS 5 producing what critics called "AI slop" demonstrates growing resistance to poorly implemented AI tools2
.What This Means for Game Development Workflow
The exact number of people affected by these Take-Two layoffs remains undisclosed, though at least four others posted similar departure announcements on LinkedIn, including the director of AI research, senior manager of SRE, and two senior data scientists
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. Dicken has since established LuDic AI, a consulting service "around the best-practice use of AI technologies for games-adjacent verticals"3
.Whether these cuts signal failed pilot programs or a strategic shift in how Take-Two approaches machine learning and procedural content remains unclear. The company is racing toward the release of Grand Theft Auto VI, which analysts expect will deliver substantial revenue that could fund technological experimentation
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. The decision to dismantle the AI team now, rather than after this anticipated financial windfall, suggests either disappointing results from AI implementations or a fundamental reassessment of how AI fits into the company's creative process. What remains certain is that Take-Two's confidence in delivering hit titles without heavily leaning on such technology has never been clearer5
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Source: Engadget
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