Take-Two Layoffs Hit Its Own AI Team — Weeks After CEO Publicly Praised Generative AI

In the technology and entertainment sectors, a certain type of corporate whiplash has become almost commonplace, but Take-Two Interactive was able to execute a version of it that is still startling. During an earnings call in early February 2026, CEO Strauss Zelnick informed investors that his company was “actively embracing” generative AI, that the technology was already driving efficiencies and cutting costs, and that, in a statement that now reads somewhat differently, AI would actually increase employment rather than decrease it because technology always raises productivity, and productivity raises everything else. A few weeks later, Take-Two fired its Head of Artificial Intelligence, Luke Dicken, and an unspecified number of his colleagues.

Dickens announced via LinkedIn, as many modern tech professionals do, with a tone of cautious restraint over what was obviously sincere disappointment. “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. He didn’t give an explanation or place blame. He listed seven areas of expertise, including procedural content creation, machine learning, and AI-assisted development workflows, and asked his network to assist in finding his employees new jobs.

It read more like someone attempting to reassure coworkers after an unplanned fall than it did like a resignation announcement. Within a brief period of time, at least four other team members—a director of AI research, a senior manager, and two senior data scientists—posted similar messages on the same platform, each detailing a layoff that had come from above.

When contacted by several media outlets, Take-Two declined to comment. That quiet is a statement in and of itself. It appears that the company, which had been outspoken about its AI goals, had nothing to say about dismantling the internal team responsible for achieving them.

The larger context is what makes the timing truly perplexing. Dicken led Zynga’s generative AI strategy as senior director of applied AI for more than ten years. In 2022, Take-Two acquired Zynga for $12.7 billion. In January 2025, Take-Two hired him as Head of AI, which was interpreted as a clear indication that the company was taking AI seriously and leveraging Zynga’s prior experience with machine learning and data-driven game systems.

According to reports, his team had been working for both companies for seven years, creating tools that would speed up and improve game development. The rebuilding of institutional knowledge takes time. The company has so far declined to address the questions raised by losing it weeks before the start of GTA 6’s marketing campaign.

It is worthwhile to focus on the GTA 6 dimension. Zelnick has been cautious to state that it has “zero” involvement with generative AI in the sequel to one of the most commercially successful entertainment products in history, which is scheduled for release on November 19, 2026. This framing is probably intended to avoid the kind of backlash that other game companies have experienced when players suspect AI-generated content. In recent years, the gaming community has consistently reacted negatively to AI in creative work, from fans flagging visual assets as algorithmically generated to automated tools replacing translation jobs.

Clearly reading that room, Rockstar and Take-Two positioned Grand Theft Auto 6 appropriately. The irony is that the AI team that was let go was reportedly not directly working on the game, but rather developing internal development infrastructure, which is a type of invisible tooling that improves pipeline efficiency without affecting the finished product. It’s another matter entirely whether that distinction matters to those who are losing their jobs.

Observing the gaming industry as a whole absorb wave after wave of layoffs since 2022, there’s a sense that the industry hasn’t fully recovered from the pandemic-era expansion that saw studios hire aggressively and then find themselves overstaffed as growth normalized. Embracer Group, Unity, Microsoft Gaming, Electronic Arts, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Epic Games—the list of businesses that have eliminated a substantial number of positions in the last four years is long enough to indicate a structural change rather than merely a correction.

Take-Two has previously been on that list. However, the fact that this round specifically targets the individuals who were meant to be strengthening the company’s competitive edge in one of the most talked-about areas of the entire technology landscape adds a layer of awkwardness.

The precise number of individuals impacted is still unknown. Dicken made reference to his team without providing a number, and Take-Two has not provided any confirmation. What is evident is that, according to Dicken’s own account, the team had been working at both Take-Two and Zynga for more than seven years, gaining experience that is difficult to recreate or replace. The senior director of AI development explained the change as the result of “changing priorities from upper management,” which is a generalization that doesn’t provide much insight.

The financial pressure to make this specific cut isn’t immediately apparent for a company that recorded net bookings of $1.76 billion in a single quarter and is approaching what is almost certainly going to be the biggest game release of 2026. The choice may indicate a shift away from developing AI tools in-house and toward acquiring or licensing them from outside vendors, a move that several significant studios have made.

It might also indicate a reevaluation of the technology’s current position in the development pipeline as opposed to the executives’ expectations. In any case, as the company prepares for its most eagerly awaited release in years without them, the individuals who spent years doing the work are the ones updating their LinkedIn profiles this week.