After announcing layoffs at Xbox, CEO Asha Sharma gets a new role advising the US Fed on jobs

Days after announcing sweeping layoffs at Xbox, CEO Asha Sharma has been appointed to advise the US Federal Reserve on a subject sitting at the centre of the economic debate: productivity and jobs.

The timing is striking. Xbox announced on July 6 that it would eliminate about 3,200 roles over FY27, including roughly 1,600 immediate role cuts. Three days later, the Federal Reserve named Sharma as one of three external leaders of its new Productivity and Jobs Task Force.

The Federal Reserve said the group will assess the economic impact of new general-purpose technologies, including artificial intelligence, to inform its policy decisions. Sharma will serve alongside venture capitalist Marc Andreessen and Stanford University economics professor Charles I. Jones, who is currently on leave at Anthropic.

From cutting jobs to studying how technology changes them

The appointment puts Sharma in an unusual position.

She is leading Xbox through its most significant restructuring while also helping the US central bank examine how technologies such as AI could reshape productivity and employment.

According to Xbox’s July 6 announcement, the restructuring is expected to reduce the division’s workforce by about 3,200 roles during FY27. Around 1,600 roles were eliminated immediately, with further reductions expected over the financial year.

The key developments are:

• About 3,200 Xbox roles are expected to be eliminated during FY27.
• Around 1,600 role eliminations took effect at the start of the restructuring.
• Sharma has joined the Fed’s Productivity and Jobs Task Force.
• The task force will study the economic effects of technologies including AI.
• Marc Andreessen and Charles I. Jones are the other external leaders named alongside Sharma.

The Federal Reserve announcement does not connect Sharma’s appointment with the Xbox restructuring. Her selection relates to the task force’s work on technology, productivity and employment.

What the Fed wants the task force to examine

The task force has a broad economic mandate.

The Federal Reserve said it will assess the impact of new general-purpose technologies, including AI, to help inform the central bank’s policy judgements.

The question carries direct implications for the Fed’s responsibilities around employment and inflation. AI could change how quickly companies produce goods and services, the kinds of jobs businesses need and the relationship between productivity and labour demand.

Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh has launched a wider set of task forces examining areas including communications, balance sheet policy, data sources, productivity and jobs, and inflation frameworks.

The initiative brings external advisers from business and academia into discussions around how the central bank assesses a changing economy.

Sharma brings an AI background to the panel

Sharma’s appointment is not based solely on her current position at Xbox.

Before taking charge of Microsoft’s gaming division, she led Microsoft’s Core AI product organisation, overseeing product strategy for Azure AI and Copilot. Her earlier roles also included serving as Chief Operating Officer at Instacart and as a vice-president at Meta.

Her experience places her at the intersection of AI development, technology businesses and corporate operations, areas closely aligned with the task force’s mandate.

Jones brings an academic economics background and is currently on leave at Anthropic, while Andreessen is co-founder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, which has made major investments across the technology and AI sectors.

Xbox is going through its own workforce reset

Sharma’s new advisory role comes during a difficult transition at Xbox.

In announcing the restructuring, she described it as the most significant in Xbox’s history. The plan includes workforce reductions and changes to the division’s structure.

The job cuts form part of a broader reset at the gaming business. Sharma has also set an ambition for Xbox to become one of the companies entertaining more than a billion people each day.

The scale of the ambition comes as Xbox faces questions over the future direction of its business and how it competes across gaming platforms and services.

For Sharma, the two assignments now run in parallel. At Xbox, she is overseeing a restructuring involving thousands of jobs. At the Federal Reserve, she will contribute to a wider examination of how emerging technologies could affect jobs and productivity across the economy.

AI’s impact on work moves closer to economic policy

The appointment reflects a larger shift in the AI debate.

Questions about AI and jobs are no longer confined to technology companies deciding which tasks to automate or which skills to hire. They are increasingly becoming questions for economic policymakers.

If AI raises productivity, it could influence business costs, labour demand and economic growth. Its impact could also vary sharply across industries and occupations.

The Fed’s task force will examine these broader effects as the central bank considers how technological change interacts with its policy responsibilities.

For Sharma, the timing ensures close scrutiny. The Xbox CEO is joining a task force on productivity and jobs in the same week her own division began a restructuring set to eliminate thousands of roles.

The two developments are separate. Together, however, they capture one of the biggest questions facing employers and policymakers: as technology changes how companies operate, what happens to the people whose jobs change with it?