Xbox CEO Asha Sharma is shaking up Microsoft's gaming brand leadership roster by bringing in some old team members from her days heading up Microsoft's CoreAI engineering platform. Sharma has been making big waves at Xbox in his short time since becoming CEO, and the addition of select CoreAI members to top roles at the gaming brand aims to expand its range of technical expertise.
Sharma was named CEO of Xbox on February 23, days after the leadership shakeup that began a decade ago with the announcement of the retirement of Phil Spencer, the brand's most recognizable leader. Before becoming CEO, Sharma served as president of Microsoft's CoreAI product from 2024 to early 2026 and held high-level 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 assuming her new office, Sharma now enlists five former colleagues, four of whom she worked with at CoreAI, to help correct the course for Xbox. The information comes from CNBC, which has reportedly seen a memo detailing the new team members, what their roles will be within the Xbox brand, and the reasons for bringing them on board. The memo reportedly states that these five people will be “new leaders with consumer and technical expertise that we don't yet have,” indicating that his plans go far beyond just lowering prices for Game Pass.
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The reshuffle of top-ranking staff appears to be an effort to expand Xbox's public reach and focus more on internal affairs to “make a quick impact,” which could be a key business factor as the company continues to develop its next-gen Project Helix console. Part of Sharma's explanation for the internal shakeup was made public in a post on his official Twitter account, saying the Xbox brand will “retire features that don't align with where we're going.” A typical example is the guidance feature Copilot, which has plans to begin “winding down” its use on mobile devices and end its development for consoles.
Among the new faces at Xbox is head of growth Jonathan McKay, who previously served in the same title at CoreAI and at OpenAI with AI chatbot ChatGPT. Other former Microsoft CoreAI members reportedly joining Xbox are new design chief Tim Allen, who has served as CoreAI's vice president of design; CoreAI General Manager Evan Chalki, who will lead an engineering team dedicated to simplifying workloads; and CoreAI Product Vice President Jared Palmer, who will take on technical roles in engineering, infrastructure, and development tools. Another new hire mentioned in the memo is new subscription and cloud business leader David Schloss, who comes from his role as senior director of product and growth at Instacart.
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The memo also mentions the departure of a pair of 24-year Microsoft employees, with corporate vice presidents Kevin Gammill and Ron Sons both stepping down, although Sons' departure will not be effective until later in the summer, and he plans to return as an advisor to the Xbox brand. Along with Spencer's departure from Xbox earlier in the year, former Xbox president Sarah Bond also stepped down in early 2026, though she too is serving as a special advisor to Sharma during the transition period.
