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Xbox CEO Asha Sharma is now addressing reports of major leadership changes at the publisher which see some of her past colleagues at Instacart, Meta, and Microsoft's own CoreAI product stepping in as two 24-year veterans leave their positions. Sharma explains this executive overhaul – Xbox's second upheaval since February, if you count Sharma's own appointment – is only a part of Xbox's metamorphosis, as Microsoft also prepares to scale down its Copilot AI assistant.
Like Google's Gemini and other, increasingly intrusive AI bots, Copilot is accessible through most Microsoft products, including as a phone app, and Xbox announced in March that the AI assistant would also arrive on "current-generation consoles" by the end of 2026. So, this is devastating if you wanted a condescending robot to tell you how to walk in Sea of Thieves, but Sharma writes on Twitter that Microsoft "will begin winding down Copilot on mobile and will stop development of Copilot on console."
Xbox needs to move faster, deepen our connection with the community, and address friction for both players and developers.Today, we promoted leaders who helped build Xbox, while also bringing in new voices to help push us forward. This balance is important as we get the business…May 5, 2026
The new CEO unfortunately adopts some The Social Networkian speech while describing her other plans for Xbox – "Xbox needs to move faster," she says, "and address friction for both players and developers" – but I understand her reliance on the old Silicon Valley prayer to "move fast, break things" when observing the current state of Xbox. Quarterly hardware sales are down 33%, overall revenue dropped 9% year-on-year, and Sharma recently worried in an internal memo, "Game Pass has become too expensive for players," before lancing the swelling price tag herself.
Xbox, in some ways, is already a broken business – now it needs Sharma to work fast, and she is. Sharma recently made the quick decision to abandon the Microsoft Gaming name and return to "Xbox."
Out of apparent commitment to this name and its association with Microsoft as a major console manufacturer, Sharma now explains on Twitter, "Today, we promoted leaders who helped build Xbox, while also bringing in new voices to help push us forward."
In addition to gathering a crew of new hires, including former ChatGPT leader Jonathan McKay and Instacart senior director of product growth David Schloss, Xbox has promoted Project Helix lead Jason Ronald, The Verge reports.
"This balance is important as we get the business back on track," Sharma adds. And about those former AI executives she's recruited despite Xbox dropping Copilot, according to her April 30 tweet, Xbox will instead be "refocusing our AI efforts to solving player problems like enhancing real-time graphics."
