The US Federal Reserve has announced a surprise addition to a new task force meant to advise it on policy concerning productivity and jobs: Xbox CEO Asha Sharma. Sharma's unexpected addition to the task force comes on the heels of Xbox announcing it would be laying off 3,200 employees and parting ways with Double Fine, Ninja Theory, Undead Labs, and Compulsion Games, making her the face of 2026's largest mass layoff in the video game industry.

The task force is one of five assembled by the Federal Reserve to advise the organization—which acts at the US' central banking system—on "the broad conduct of monetary policy." These groups operate independently with "a mandate to follow the evidence, provide candid feedback, and produce rigorous findings for the Federal Open Market Committee."

Sharma's task force will specifically analyze "the economic impact of new general-purpose technologies, including artificial intelligence" in order to aid the Fed in its policy decision-making. Artificial intelligence—or at least generative AI and other transformer-based AI technologies—appears to play a major role in this task force's work. She's joined by Andreessen Horowitz cofounder and general partner Marc Andreesen, and Stanford University professor of economics Charles I. Jones.

Related:Own goal specialist Xbox rifles another into the roof of the net - Patch Notes #60

Andreessen Horowitz is deeply invested in multiple AI companies, and AI company Anthropic recently hired Jones to assess AI's impact on the economy. In 2023, Andreessen penned a "techno-optimist manifesto" where he declared that artificial intelligence is our society's "philosopher's stone." This followed an earlier blog post where he declared that AI would save the world.

Sharma joins the board not just as the head of Xbox, but as the former head of Microsoft CoreAI. Before that, she was an executive at Instacart, Meta, and Porch. She certainly has extensive experience overseeing large, technology-based organizations. It just happens to be that she's set to advise the government shortly after making deep cuts to storied game studios like Obsidian Entertainment, id Software, and ZeniMax, leaving thousands game industry professionals out of work.

The cuts aren't technically over. Half of the promised 3,200 cuts took place this week. According to Sharma, the other half will take place over the course of its 2027 fiscal year.

About the Author

Bryant Francis

Senior Editor, GameDeveloper.com

Bryant Francis is a writer, journalist, and narrative designer based in Boston, MA. He currently writes for Game Developer, a leading B2B publication for the video game industry. His credits include Proxy Studios' 4X strategy game Zephon, Iron Anchor Studios' Down With The Ship, and Amplitude Studio's 2017 game Endless Space 2.