Take-Two CEO says it out loud: "The big tech companies who laid off thousands of people and said it was because of AI were not telling the truth"

Two GTA 6 characters gasp at a phone screen — (Image credit: Rockstar Games)

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Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick is calling out technology conglomerates for purportedly lying about the real reasons behind mass downsizings in recent years.

In an interview with Games Industry, Zelnick tackles the issue of AI in game development, striking a familiar optimistic tone while drawing a hard line between AI-generated games and the use of AI to increase efficiency. "For those who believe you'll press a button and make a competitive game, good luck. Technology doesn't do that. Technology doesn't create. Technology enables human beings to create," he says.

For context, Zelnick says he prefers the word technology over AI "because technology encompasses AI, and using the word AI means different things to different people."

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Amid global concerns of AI displacing jobs, Zelnick strikes a decidedly more optimistic tone, straight up declaring, "Technology is not going to take people's jobs," seemingly referring to AI. Now, you could point to several major players in tech who've explicitly (or otherwise) stated layoffs were the result of AI, but Zelnick says those companies aren't being truthful. Instead, Zelnick attributes those layoffs to the post-Covid correction in which companies rapidly hired to meet pandemic-fueled demand and then downsized when the industry self-corrected in the aftermath of the pandemic.

"The big tech companies who laid off thousands of people and said it was because of AI were not telling the truth," he says. "It was because they overhired in the pandemic and they were sloppy about it and they haven't addressed their headcount issues."

Specifically, Zelnick says the market is "completely incorrect" in its apparent prediction that "all SaaS companies will go out of business because of AI."

"And if the market weren't incorrect now and then, how could you invest in it? You'd never have an opportunity," Zelnick says.

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Jordan GerblickStaff Writer

After earning an English degree from ASU, I worked as a corporate copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. I got my big break here in 2019 with a freelance news gig, and I was hired on as GamesRadar's west coast Staff Writer in 2021. That means I'm responsible for managing the site's western regional executive branch, AKA my home office, and writing about whatever horror game I'm too afraid to finish.

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Take-Two CEO says it out loud: "The big tech companies who laid off thousands of people and said it was because of AI were not telling the truth"

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