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 game development.

And Take-Two has been vocal too, with CEO Strauss Zelnick commenting on multiple occasions that generative AI has no part in GTA 6, calling the notion of AI creating a hit game laughable. At the same time, Zelnick has also said he has "actively embraced" AI for handling mundane tasks, while leaving the creative work to humans to produce superb entertainment.

Now, only two months later, the publisher and parent company of Rockstar Games has laid off members of its team dedicated to researching and implementing artificial intelligence. Most notably, the company's Head of AI, Luke Dicken, has been let go, along with an undisclosed number of people from the division.

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Dicken joined Take-Two as Head of Artificial Intelligence in January last year, following a decade at Zynga, which was acquired by the Rockstar Games owner in 2022. Less than 18 months into the role, he revealed on LinkedIn that he and Take-Two were parting ways. Spotted by Kotaku, Dicken used the post to appeal to others in the industry to consider his teammates for open roles.

"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," he wrote. "We've been developing cutting edge technology to support game development for 7 years. These folks know how to match innovation and novel problem solving approaches with strong product design to create systems that empower people throughout the development workflow."

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While Dicken didn't specify the exact number of people leaving, at least four others posted similar announcements on LinkedIn, including the director of AI research, the senior manager of SRE, and two senior data scientists.

The timing makes the layoffs difficult to read. Zelnick had acknowledged that AI had the potential to support game development, even if it couldn't just create a game at the push of a button. Now, all of a sudden, a major AI team layoff doesn't exactly align with that sentiment.

What Take-Two's generative AI strategy looks like going forward is anyone's guess. But it is interesting to see the company let go of its AI leads at a time when most layoffs have been justified by studios replacing people with AI tools. It shows just how confident the company is in delivering hit titles without leaning on such technology.