Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has been called by the US Federal Reserve to help examine the overall economic impact of AI as part the organization’s new ‘Productivity and Jobs’ taskforce. Five new task forces were announced via an official press release with the Xbox CEO serving as one of three members of the task force focused on jobs, productivity and AI.
And according to the press release, the purpose of the new task force is to “assess the economic impact of new general-purpose technologies, including artificial intelligence, to inform the Federal Reserve’s policy judgments.”
“The Federal Reserve’s commitment to price stability and maximum employment is unwavering. As is our resolve to pursue our mandate with rigor,” said Chairman Kevin Warsh. “The U.S. economy has changed significantly over the last generation, and never more so than right now. Each task force will carefully consider whether policymakers’ means and methods, analytical tools and policy approaches can be improved upon. I am honored that the best minds from a range of disciplines have agreed to work with us to sharpen our performance as an institution. The goal is straightforward: to ensure the Fed is best positioned to achieve our objectives in this consequential time.”
The Xbox CEO has been appointed to the new role just days after a massive restructuring has started in Microsoft’s gaming brand which has seen 1600 staff losing their jobs on Monday and 3200 employees scheduled to be let go by the end of the current fiscal year. Also, four studios have been let out from the Xbox brand including Arkane, Ninja Theory, Double Fine and Compulsion Games with possibly another developer as well.
Sharma had also stated in her ‘Reset’ memo that Xbox is not in a healthy place right now hence the necessity of the layoffs and job cuts: “Our business today is not healthy. We are operating at margins that are 3–10x lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses. We entered Gen 9 with a smaller install base and a higher cost structure. To grow, we bet on Game Pass, multi-platform, and a broader portfolio of content.”
“While those businesses have created meaningful value, they did not grow at the pace we expected. As that happened, our core business weakened, and we added more teams, more investment, and more time, hoping for a better outcome. And now the industry is facing the most severe hardware crisis in its history. We must reset XBOX.”
