The Federal Reserve picked a new Xbox chief executive to help advise it on jobs and artificial intelligence just days after she announced the elimination of 3,200 positions across Microsoft's gaming studios.
Asha Sharma was named to the Fed's productivity and jobs task force, which will assess the economic impact of new general-purpose technologies, including artificial intelligence, to inform the Federal Reserve's policy judgments. According to a report by Engadget, the appointment came shortly after Sharma announced the layoffs to the company.
Sharma moved to Xbox from Microsoft's Core AI group. In the early months of her time leading the gaming division, she also oversaw a price hike for gaming hardware. Microsoft has been cutting staff across multiple divisions for some time, and the layoffs are not described as a policy she personally introduced. Still, the timing drew attention.
She will serve alongside Marc Andreessen, the venture capitalist and Trump ally, and Charles I. Jones, a Stanford University economics professor currently on leave to work at the Anthropic Institute. The Washington Post reported that Fed chair Jerome Powell tapped Andreessen for the panel.
The advisory trio has drawn skepticism. Andreessen is a prominent booster of artificial intelligence and has faced criticism over his public statements on the technology. Jones, through his academic and research background, is seen as the more analytically grounded member of the group.
The task force is charged with informing Fed policy at a moment when AI is reshaping hiring decisions, productivity, and labor markets across many industries. The gaming sector in particular has seen widespread job losses in recent years as studios struggle to balance rising development costs with uncertain revenue and the growing use of AI tools in production.
