Xbox CEO Joins Federal Reserve Jobs Task Force After Mass Layoffs

In a jarring twist of timing for the gaming community, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has been appointed to advise the United States government on job productivity just days after becoming the face of the video game industry’s largest mass layoff of 2026. The government appointment places the tech executive at the center of national economic policy discussions during an incredibly turbulent and painful period for thousands of Xbox employees.

The US Federal Reserve recently announced the creation of five independent advisory task forces meant to help the central banking system reassess how it evaluates monetary policy and labor markets. Sharma has been tapped to co-lead the panel focused on "Productivity and Jobs." The unexpected addition has sparked swift backlash and disbelief across the gaming industry, as it arrives on the exact same week Sharma announced Xbox is eliminating 3,200 jobs. 

The human cost of this restructuring is staggering. While half of the promised 3,200 cuts took place immediately this week, Sharma noted that the remaining 1,600 will be rolled out over the course of the 2027 fiscal year, as reported by Gamedeveloper. 

The sweeping overhaul also means Xbox is parting ways with four beloved internal studios, Double Fine Productions, Ninja Theory, Undead Labs, and Compulsion Games, which are leaving to pursue independence or new ownership. At the same time, deep cuts are being felt across storied developers like Obsidian Entertainment, id Software, and ZeniMax, leaving countless industry professionals out of work.

Financial Realities Driving the "Painful Reset"

In internal communications, Sharma offered a blunt look at the financial realities driving what she described as a painful but necessary reset for the brand. She revealed that Xbox currently operates at profit margins three to ten times lower than comparable gaming and publishing competitors, admitting that in a typical year, the company lost 64 cents for every dollar invested in certain projects. 

While the gaming industry reels from the cuts, Sharma's new role in Washington will focus heavily on the future of labor. Assembled by Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh, the independent groups operate with a mandate to follow the evidence, provide candid feedback, and produce rigorous findings for the Federal Open Market Committee on the broad conduct of monetary policy. Sharma’s specific task force will analyze the economic impact of new general-purpose technologies, with generative AI and other transformer-based AI technologies playing a major role in their research.

To tackle this, she is joined by two prominent co-leads: Stanford University economics professor Charles I. Jones and Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Marc Andreessen. Both men are deeply embedded in the AI space. Jones was recently hired by the AI company Anthropic to assess the technology's impact on the economy, while Andreessen is heavily invested in multiple AI startups. Andreessen previously penned a "techno-optimist manifesto" declaring artificial intelligence our society's "philosopher's stone," following an earlier blog post where he claimed the technology would save the world.

Sharma’s own background certainly fits the Federal Reserve's mandate to examine technology's effect on the labor market. Before taking the helm at Xbox in February 2026, she served as the president of Microsoft's CoreAI product organization, following executive stints at Meta, Instacart, and Porch. 

While commentators argue her extensive experience overseeing large-scale AI operations is exactly what the Fed needs, the optics remain incredibly heavy. As the only active CEO named across all five of the Fed's panels, Sharma finds herself in the awkward position of advising the government on national job productivity at the exact moment she is putting thousands of talented game developers out of work.