Take-Two CEO ponders future of games industry with experimental AI 'engagement on the fly' model

The future of gaming might see consumers interacting directly with some sort of generative AI that changes gameplay on-the-fly

Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick has an interesting idea about the future of gaming, and how LLMs could be used to power bustling engagement in online games.

In a recent interview with CNBC, Zelnick shares his thoughts, teasing that such experimental tech is actually in the works. It's hard to tell if Zelnick is referring to this tech being used at one of his own studios--maybe Rockstar Games, or 2K Games?--or if he's nodding to EA's new gen AI chatbot revealed to investors in 2024.

This is a short but highly valuable comment from Zelnick, who has been skeptical of AI in the past--at least when it comes to content creation. In this sense, it feels like Zelnick's words are more about logistics, however specifics remain unclear and are likely to stay that way until the technology takes shape in some sort of consumer-facing product. He also expects AI to drive up costs, not reduce them.

Below is a quick transcript of the exchange:

Q. Could you imagine that the games could take a complete and utter life of their own in the future if there's an LLM that's effectively powering it?

A. (Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick) That's a great question. It's actually more of an answer than a question, and it's a good answer. Right now, everything we do is programmed. It's a tree and branch system, and it's very big, especially in a big game.

And yes, you could imagine a situation where you create rails, and within rails, you have AI creating more engagement on-the-fly. That's being tested--I won't say where--and it's pretty interesting.

It's exciting because that's an example of technology allowing our teams to do something new and interesting that consumers should love.