Take-Two CEO Expects AI To Make Games More Beautiful and Compelling

By Ray AmpoloquioUpdated Feb 22, 2026

Mar 30, 2025Updated Feb 22, 2026

Take-Two's CEO is challenging the idea that AI will make game development cheaper and faster.

Grand Theft Auto 6 is going to be one of the biggest games of the current console generation, if not ever. With the rise of generative AI, some in the industry think that technology will reach a point when video game development studies won't have to spend as much time, money, and resources to create in-game universes such as expansive - though based on the current trajectory of the AI bubble, that seems like a rather dire prediction.

If you ask Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick, he doesn't believe this is going to be the case. In an interview with Bloomberg, Zelnick explained that it's a mistake to think that the use of generative AI is going to make video game development cheaper and faster, potentially costing jobs. If anything, he thinks that the opposite is true.

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Take-Two CEO Expects AI To Make Games More Beautiful and Compelling

Zelnick said that while generative AI might speed up certain aspects of making video games, it's also going to lead to a heightened demand for larger titles. He compares generative AI to the push for paperless offices, saying that offices these days use even more paper than ever.

Finally, he ends this part of the interview talking about AI by saying that the technology will help studios something "more beautiful, even more compelling, even more interesting." This isn't the first time Zelnick has had an interesting take on generative AI in the video game industry. Back in February, he mentioned that the "creative genius" behind video games will always be the human mind - let's hope he is right.

With that said, does this mean that the next Grand Theft Auto or Rockstar Games title will be even bigger? Possibly, but the statement does, in a way, guarantee that we won't be seeing Grand Theft Auto 7 or Red Dead Redemption 3 anytime soon. As for GTA 6, Zelnick revealed in the same interview that the lack of information regarding the upcoming sixthquel is intentional and they prefer to keep it that way.

Elsewhere, Zelnick doesn't seem particularly concerned about a potential delay for GTA 6, even dancing around the question when asked about how much it would take for Take-Two consider GTA 6 a financial success. For what it's worth, estimates currently put the development costs of GTA 6 at two billion, but many industry insiders, including previous Rockstar collaborators, firmly believe that the game will make just as much back within its first week of release.

With only a few winks away from the start of the next fiscal year, GTA 6's release window inching closer than ever, and Take-Two's increased marketing budget, it certainly feels like this interview was a precursor for things to come. Who knows? Maybe this interview with Zelnick showing off, among other things, his golden PlayStation 5, is just the start, and will be followed immediately by the next GTA 6 trailer sometime in April, maybe on April 1. A fan can certainly dream.