- Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick says there are benefits to AI
- Zelnick says AI will allow Take-Two’s creators to focus on more “higher quality work”
- He adds that AI is more likely to take Elon Musk’s job
Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has said that artificial intelligence (AI) will not steal artists’ jobs, but will allow them to do “higher quality work” instead of boring tasks.
Speaking at Semafor World Economy 2026, Zelnick discussed the rapidly growing popularity of AI and responded to how the technology is affecting quality and creativity at some of Take-Two’s subsidiaries, such as GTA 6 studio Rockstar Games and 2K.
“The three-pronged strategy for Take-Two is: be the most creative, be the most innovative, be the most efficient, and we think AI informs all three,” Zelnick said. “In short about creativity, anything you can do that you know reduces the day-to-day work means our creators can do more exciting work.”
The article continues below
“So when I started in the video game business, which was, believe it or not, 1993, if you wanted to create a lawn, an artist had to create individual blades of grass; otherwise it looked like concrete. Today, this is pre-AI, if one of my artists and I have many thousands of them who want to create a lawn, they press the lawn button and it populates a lawn.
“So just imagine AI, you know, doing it on steroids. So what does that mean? It doesn’t mean all my artists are now out of work. It’s the mistake that some of them might be out of work, right? No, they won’t be out of work. They’ll make higher quality work. They don’t care about lawns anymore.”
The CEO continued, saying that while AI “can be used for evil” purposes, people “spend too much time talking about the ‘woe is me’ risk,” adding that if AI were to take anyone’s job, it would be Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
“If AI were to get rid of employment, the richest man on Earth, Elon Musk, knows a little about AI last time I checked,” the Take-Two chief said. “He has unlimited financial resources, and he has unlimited human resources, and he has seemingly an unlimited number of ideas. He knows his way around AI.
“The man works 20 hours a day. If AI were to take someone’s job, wouldn’t it take his job? The richest guy on Earth, wouldn’t that be the number one job for AI to take? Why is he so busy? By the way, why am I working harder than ever despite totally accepting AI in every part of my life?”
Zelnick’s comments about Musk come after the latter suggested that AI could generate its own GTA 6 in a reply on X/Twitter.
While the Take-Two boss didn’t directly respond to the post, he later called the idea of AI tools to create a video game on GTA 6‘s scale a “ridiculous notion” (via The Game Business).
“These tools can help you create assets, but they don’t help you create hits,” Zelnick said at the time. “… The notion that new tools would somehow allow an individual to push a button and generate a hit, market a hit and bring it to millions of consumers around the world – that’s a ridiculous notion. That’s just never been the case with entertainment.”
The best Xbox controllers
Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews and opinions in your feeds. Be sure to click the Follow button!
And of course you can too follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, video unboxings, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp also.
