Xbox CEO Asha Sharma is shaking up the leadership of Microsoft's gaming brand by bringing in and elevating some old team members from her days as head of Microsoft's CoreAI technology platform. Sharma has already made waves at Xbox in the short time since she became CEO, and adding select CoreAI members to top roles at the gaming brand is intended to expand its range of technical expertise.
Sharma was named CEO of Xbox on February 23, just days after the start of a leadership shuffle that began with the retirement of Phil Spencer, who had been the brand's best-known leader for more than a decade previously. Before becoming CEO, Sharma had served as president of Microsoft's CoreAI product from 2024 to early 2026, and had held senior technical roles at both Meta and Instacart before taking that position.
Xbox adds four former CoreAI members to high-profile roles
Less than three months after taking up her new office, Sharma is now said to have brought in five former colleagues, four of whom she worked with at CoreAI, to help course-correct Xbox. This information comes from CNBC, which has reportedly viewed a memo detailing the new team members, what their roles will be within the Xbox brand, and the reason they were brought on board. The memo reportedly says that these five people will be “new leaders with consumer and technical expertise that we don't yet have,” indicating that her plans extend far beyond lowering Game Pass prices.
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The reshuffling of top staff appears to be an effort to expand Xbox's reach to the public and to “broadcast impact quickly,” as opposed to focusing too heavily on internal matters, which could be an important business factor while the company develops its next-generation Project Helix console. Part of Sharma's explanation for the internal shakeup has been made public in a post on her official Twitter account, saying the Xbox brand will be “retiring features that are not aligned with where we're going.” A specific example is the guidance feature Copilot, with plans to begin “stepping down” use on mobile devices and ending development for consoles.
Among the new faces at Xbox is growth manager Jonathan McKay, who previously served in the same title at CoreAI and with AI chatbot ChatGPT at OpenAI. Other former Microsoft CoreAI members reportedly joining Xbox are new design lead Tim Allen, who has served as CoreAI's vice president of design; CoreAI general manager Evan Chaki, who will lead an engineering team dedicated to simplifying workloads; and CoreAI's vice president of product Jared Palmer, who will take a technical role in technology, infrastructure and development tools. Another new hire mentioned in the memo is new subscription and cloud business leader David Schloss, who comes in from a role as senior director of product and growth at Instacart.
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The memo also mentions the departures of a pair of 24-year Microsoft employees, with corporate vice presidents Kevin Gammill and Roanne Sones both leaving their posts, though Sones' departure won't take effect until after the summer, and she's slated to return as an advisor to the Xbox brand. Along with Spencer's departure from Xbox earlier in the year, former president of Xbox Sarah Bond also left in early 2026, although she has also served as a special advisor to Sharma during the transition period.
