Huge GTA 6 concern addressed by Take-Two boss ahead of game release

The big boss behind all things GTA 6 recently spoke about the huge game and industry concerns regarding artificial intelligence.

AI is everywhere. From asking Elon Musk's Grok or Chat GPT to answer a few questions to working in the background on Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram to perfect your personal algorithm, we cannot escape it and it is almost certain that the presence of AI in life will only grow as time passes us by. But the relationship between AI and industry is a conflicting one.

On one side, it can be used by business leaders to cut costs. But often that cost is at the expense of people and real-world jobs where members of the workforce are left looking for a new way to earn a living.

The video game industry is no different, with concerns growing among creators and developers behind producing video games about their long term security in a world where AI is becoming more prevalent.

According to 2025 report from the people behind the Game Developers Conference, 52 percent of developers who took part said they worked at companies that were using AI on their games. Of the 3,000 people who took part in the survey, roughly half said they were concerned about the technology’s impact on the industry.

An increasing number of respondents also reported they felt negatively about AI overall.

A screen grab from the first GTA 6 trailer (Rockstar)

With GTA 6 set to be released in the autumn of 2025 - an October or early November date is likely - the boss of the game's parent company Take-Two Interactive, Strauss Zelnick, sat down with CNBC to discuss the game and the issue of AI in the industry.

Take-Two has owned Rockstar Games since 1998, meaning it has been at the helm of every major release in the GTA universe's history.

Speaking to Zelnick, the CNBC anchor asks: "How much of this is AI and what can we do just in terms of where AI stands in the industry right now?"

Responding, Zelnick said the company has been using what we refer to as AI 'since the very beginning.

Strauss Zelnick admitted that what we know as AI has been used 'since the very beginning' (Rockstar)

"Well, we've been using digital tools since the very beginning," he said. "So I would say the interactive entertainment business is an innovator within what people call AI now.

"And I don't doubt that we'll continue to innovate."

But his next words were rather comforting to those who work in the gaming industries on AAA products such as GTA 6, with Zelnick adding: "I think it's worth noting, though, that the genius is human and the tools may be digital, but the creative genius is human."

GTA 6 is coming out in the autumn of 2025 (Rockstar)

Asked how Take-Two plans to protect the 'creative genius' and 'pay those who are the humans', Zelnick said: "We believe in protecting and

paying human beings, and we believe that we ought to pay forvtheir work if it's replicated by AI after the work is done.

"So we believe that that is the right thing to do. We don't think it's the right thing to ask someone to perform once, use their work over and over, and not pay for it.

"We don't think that's right."