Xbox's new leadership era is getting a technical reset. CEO Asha Sharma is adding several executives from Microsoft's CoreAI group and other product-focused teams to the gaming division, a move framed internally as part of an effort to make Xbox move faster and spend more time with players and developers.
According to CNBC, which viewed Sharma's memo to staff, the Xbox CEO told employees the division needs to change how it is organized after a difficult stretch for Microsoft's gaming business. CNBC reported that Xbox has posted gaming revenue declines in four of the past six quarters, putting more pressure on the team to sharpen its platform, subscription and developer-facing work.
"We need to evolve how we work and how we are organized across our platform," Sharma wrote in the memo, according to CNBC. "Right now, it is too hard to ship impact quickly. We spend too much time inward instead of with the community, and we lack the depth we need in some of the fundamentals."
CoreAI veterans are taking key Xbox roles
The biggest change is the arrival of four leaders with ties to CoreAI, the Microsoft engineering group Sharma led before she took over Xbox in February. CNBC reported that Jared Palmer, a CoreAI vice president of product and GitHub senior vice president, is joining Xbox in a technical staff role covering product, engineering, developer tools and infrastructure.
Tim Allen, CoreAI's vice president of design and GitHub's senior vice president of design and research, will lead Xbox design. Jonathan McKay, who previously led growth for ChatGPT at OpenAI and later held the same title inside CoreAI, is becoming Xbox's head of growth. Evan Chaki, a CoreAI general manager, will lead a forward-deployed engineering team focused on simplifying development and reducing repetitive work.
Xbox is also bringing in David Schloss from Instacart, where he served as senior director of product and growth. Schloss will oversee the subscription and cloud business, making his role especially relevant to Game Pass and Xbox's broader cloud gaming ambitions.
Two longtime Microsoft executives are leaving their current posts. Kevin Gammill, a corporate vice president working across Xbox user experience, game development and publishing platforms, is departing. Roanne Sones, corporate vice president for Xbox devices and ecosystem, will take a leave of absence after the summer and later return as an Xbox advisor. CNBC reported that both have spent 24 years at Microsoft.
The reshuffle follows a change in Xbox's AI plans
The appointments land during a wider reset for Xbox after Phil Spencer's retirement and Sharma's move into the top gaming role. Sharma previously worked at Meta and Instacart before joining Microsoft in 2024, then became president of product in CoreAI, a group tied to GitHub Copilot, Visual Studio Code and other developer tools.
Her Xbox tenure has already included a visible course correction on AI features. In a message reported by VGC, Sharma said Xbox will begin winding down Copilot on mobile and stop development of Copilot on console, saying the company will retire features that do not fit where it is headed. That shift is notable because Microsoft had previously shown Copilot-style gaming assistance in examples using Minecraft and Overwatch.
The reshuffle also sits alongside Microsoft's attempt to make Xbox feel more cohesive across devices. Recent work such as Xbox Mode on Windows 11 PCs shows the company still wants a gaming experience that stretches beyond a traditional console, but Sharma's memo suggests the internal priority is now execution: fewer blockers, deeper contact with the community and more technical depth in the teams building Xbox's next phase.