adminAsha Sharma, CEO of Xbox, has been appointed to co-lead the US Federal Reserve’s Productivity and Jobs task force. The group will examine how new general-purpose technologies, including artificial intelligence, affect productivity and employment, and provide information to support the Federal Reserve’s policy judgments.
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Asha Sharma and the Federal Reserve task force
The Federal Reserve has created five task forces to examine issues relevant to the broad conduct of monetary policy. Each group will be led jointly by external advisers, whose backgrounds include economics, business leadership and experience at central banks.
Sharma will lead the Productivity and Jobs division alongside Marc Andreessen, co-founder and general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, and Charles I. Jones, a Stanford University economics professor currently on leave at AI company Anthropic.
The group’s remit is to assess the economic effects of emerging general-purpose technologies, including AI. In practical terms, its work concerns questions such as how technological change may influence productivity and jobs—areas that can help inform economic policy assessments.
Xbox layoffs precede Sharma’s appointment
Sharma’s appointment comes after Xbox announced that it plans to eliminate 3,200 positions by the end of 2027. Studios affected by the cuts include ZeniMax Online Studios, id Software, Bethesda Game Studios and Obsidian.
In a statement about the changes, Sharma described them as part of a plan to pursue a larger future for Xbox. She said the company would invest in the business at a substantial level that year, while applying more focus, discipline and clarity to its spending. She also characterized the coming decade of gaming as likely to be broader, more global and more creative.
For readers following the announcement, it is useful to distinguish the Federal Reserve appointment from Xbox’s business decisions: the task force’s stated purpose is to assess technology’s economic impact, while the job reductions are an Xbox restructuring announcement.
Sharma’s role at Microsoft and Xbox
Sharma became Xbox CEO earlier this year, succeeding Phil Spencer. She joined Microsoft in 2024 as president of CoreAI.
Since taking the Xbox role, she has made several leadership and product changes. These include discontinuing Gaming Copilot, lowering the price of Game Pass and changing the Microsoft Gaming brand back to Xbox. The announcements provide context for her current leadership responsibilities, although the Federal Reserve task force has a separate economic research remit.
What the task force will examine
The Productivity and Jobs group is one of five Federal Reserve task forces established to study subjects connected to monetary policy. Its focus on AI and other general-purpose technologies places productivity and employment at the center of its work. The Federal Reserve says the findings are intended to inform its policy judgments; the announcement does not describe the task force as making policy decisions itself.
Overall, the Asha Sharma Federal Reserve task force appointment brings together advisers from technology, finance and academia to examine how new technologies may affect the economy. Its stated focus is the relationship between innovation, productivity and jobs, while Sharma continues to lead Xbox during a period of announced organizational changes.
