TakeTwo Lays Off AI Head Luke Dicken, Team

TakeTwo Interactive, the parent company of Rockstar Games and publisher of titles like Grand Theft Auto, has laid off its head of artificial intelligence, Luke Dicken, along with an undisclosed number of employees in the AI department. The move, announced by Dicken in a LinkedIn post on Thursday, marks a significant restructuring within the company's technology division at a time when leadership has publicly endorsed exploring generative AI for operational efficiencies.

Dicken, who joined TakeTwo in January 2025 after a decade at Zynga, which the company acquired in 2022 for $12.7 billion, described the departures in emotional terms. "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 highlighted the team's seven years of work developing tools to support game development, noting that his colleagues possess skills in "innovation and novel problem-solving approaches with strong product design chops to create systems that empower people throughout the development workflow." Dicken appealed for industry support in placing his former team members in new roles but did not disclose the reasons for the...