An AI would never have made GTA, say the bosses of Take-Two and Sony

The heads of Take-Two and Sony agree that no artificial intelligence could have created something like Grand Theft Auto: according to Strauss Zelnick, data looks backwards and the biggest hits never see it coming. They said it together on stage in New York, in a talk covered by IGN, less than a month before GTA 6 hits shelves. Here's what each of them said, the Home Alone story Zelnick told, and why this isn't the first time Rockstar's owner has talked like this.

What did Zelnick and Totoki say about AI?

The talk took place on Tuesday, 20 October, at the Paley International Council Summit, a yearly gathering of media executives at the Paley Museum in Manhattan. Under the title "Gaming, Culture and the Future of Entertainment", according to the event's agenda, Strauss Zelnick, chairman and CEO of Rockstar's parent company Take-Two, shared the stage with Hiroki Totoki, president and CEO of Sony.

Both took the same line: AI won't replace people in entertainment, but it does work as a tool. Totoki summed it up in a sentence that has already done the rounds in the games press, as GameSpot also reports:

That said, he isn't rejecting it. Totoki explained that he encourages his people to use AI "in a certain manner", while still protecting the rights of creators and artists.

Why does Zelnick think an AI couldn't make GTA?

Zelnick went further and laid out his theory. First, with a warning one of Take-Two's division heads gave his team: "You're not gonna be replaced by AI, but if you're not careful you'll be replaced by someone who knows how to use AI."

Then came the heart of his argument, according to IGN: "AI is a collection of datasets, compute, and large language models. That's what it is. And datasets, by definition, are backward looking. That's all they are. And creativity, at its best, is forward looking."

To prove it, he pointed to his own series: "When the first Grand Theft Auto was created, we thought the phrase 'Grand Theft Auto' wouldn't turn into what it's turned into today."

What does Home Alone have to do with any of this?

It's the story Zelnick used to round off his point. Before Take-Two, he was president of 20th Century Fox, and he lived through one of the biggest surprises in film history: Home Alone. The movie went into production at Warner Bros., which dropped it four days into the shoot, something he says "never happens". Fox picked it up, "everyone thought it was a disaster", and it ended up as the highest-grossing comedy of all time.

His conclusion: "If hits are unexpected, data sets aren't gonna get you there, no matter how fluent they are."

Coming from the man about to launch the most pre-ordered game right now, that line carries some weight.

Is this the first time Take-Two's boss has said this?

No. Zelnick has been on message for a while. In October 2025, at a CNBC summit, he was asked whether an AI could create a GTA at the push of a button, and he ruled it out, as VGC reported: "The answer is no. A, you can't do that yet, and B, I am of the view that you wouldn't end up with anything very good." In his view, the result would be "pretty derivative", because "there is no creativity that can exist, by definition, in any AI model, because it is data driven."

What Zelnick hasn't said is that Rockstar uses no AI at any point in GTA 6's production, nor has he explained how Take-Two uses it. For now, the message is the same as ever: a tool, yes; an author, no.