Take-Two CEO says making hits like GTA 6 remains the purview of human beings

During Take-Two Interactive's Q2 2027 earnings call, CEO Strauss Zelnick fielded multiple investor questions about artificial intelligence and its potential impact on the company's biggest franchises. One caller raised concerns about AI-powered compilation and decompilation tools that have recently sparked piracy worries across the publishing landscape.

Zelnick acknowledged that the video game business has been largely immune to traditional piracy due to file sizes, console ecosystem protections, and the online nature of modern titles. However, he noted that AI does present a new threat vector. The company is scaling its technical defenses and legal activities to counter bad actors, though Zelnick characterized the risk as manageable.

A second investor pressed further, asking whether AI could give Grand Theft Auto VI developer Rockstar Games a competitive advantage. Zelnick's response underscored a consistent philosophy. While technological advances have always benefited game development and made asset creation easier, he argued that the core challenge remains unchanged.

Making a big hit was hard then, and it's hard now, and it's going to be hard in the future, Zelnick stated. He emphasized that hit creation remains the purview of human beings, driven by human creativity harnessing technology rather than technology replacing creative decision-making.

Elsewhere on the call, Zelnick reiterated that GTA 6 pre-order numbers are tracking well above expectations and predicted the game's success would set a new baseline for Take-Two's business. His skepticism toward AI solving large-scale game development echoes earlier comments, when he rejected the notion that AI could tackle games on the scale of GTA 6.