Asha Sharma joins Federal Reserve advisory task force days after laying off thousands at Xbox

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has been appointed to a Federal Reserve advisory task force focused on assessing how new technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, affect productivity and employment. Sharma, who became Xbox head earlier this year after working in Microsoft’s Core AI group, joins Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz and economist Charles I. Jones from Stanford on the task force—one of five newly created by the Federal Reserve to advise on monetary policy.

The appointment has drawn significant attention due to its timing, coming just days after Xbox announced a major restructuring involving 3,200 job cuts. The layoffs include the immediate termination of 1,600 employees, with another 1,600 planned over the remainder of the financial year, alongside the closure of four Xbox-owned studios: Double Fine, Ninja Theory, Undead Labs, and Compulsion Games. This represents the video game industry’s largest mass layoff of 2026.

The irony of Sharma’s simultaneous appointment to a Federal Reserve task force on “jobs and productivity” while overseeing unprecedented industry layoffs has not escaped notice. The Federal Reserve characterized its new task forces as demonstrating a “commitment to price stability and maximum employment.” Notably, Sharma is the only active CEO named to lead one of the Fed’s newly announced task forces.

Asha Sharma joins Federal Reserve advisory task force days after laying off thousands at Xbox

Sources