Take-Two Interactive, the company behind Grand Theft Auto VI, has begun an internal restructuring, and one of its first visible moves was to part ways with the head of its artificial intelligence division along with several key members of the group.
It may seem at first glance as if the publisher behind Grand Theft Auto VI would be untouched by large-scale corporate reshuffles and internal strategic decisions, but that is clearly not the case. Take-Two Interactive has now announced internal changes, and one of the first major steps in that process is the reorganization of its artificial intelligence team. The decision has led to the departure of the division’s director as well as several important team members, with the stated goal of making broader adoption of generative AI technologies easier across the company.
Luke Dicken, who took over as head of AI at the beginning of 2025, said that both he and his team had been let go by the company. In a message reported by Kotaku, he expressed disappointment with the decision while also emphasizing the kind of work they had been doing. According to him, they had spent seven years developing cutting-edge technologies designed to support game development. He argued that this effort was never meant to replace human creativity, but rather to enhance it and allow developers to go further without losing the handcrafted nature of their work.
Kotaku also pointed out that much of the team had originally come from Zynga, which Take-Two acquired in 2022 for $12.7 billion. It now appears, however, that the integration did not produce all of the benefits the company had hoped for, and that has forced Take-Two to rethink its medium- and long-term strategy.
Take-Two is not closed off to generative AI, but always with nuances
The move is especially notable because it partly clashes with what the company’s leadership has been saying in public recently. Both Karl Slatoff and CEO Strauss Zelnick have spoken openly about the potential value of generative AI, though always with important caveats attached. The company has even tried to distance itself from the idea that systems such as Genie could replace large human development teams, particularly after investors raised concerns along those lines.
Zelnick has been particularly direct in his most recent comments, saying that the notion of an artificial intelligence being able to create a new Grand Theft Auto on its own is simply ridiculous. That more or less defines the path Take-Two appears to be following: AI may be used as a support tool, but the company is not willing to hand over the creative role that it still sees as the real value of its development teams.
Source: 3DJuegos
