Xbox boss bumps some of her Microsoft CoreAI buddies up into leadership jobs, but hey, at least they're stopping some of their Copilot gubbins

"You’ll see us begin to retire features that don’t align with where we’re headed"

Lo, the great and powerful leader of the Ecksbocks kingdom hath issued another decree, as she continues to make changes following her succession to the throne once held by Phil Spencer. Some of my former Microsoft CoreAI teammates will join my leadership council, Xbox boss Asha Sharma has decided, while also opting to nix some of the plans the company had to push Copilot into their gaming offerings.

Specifically, Sharma announced that Microsoft "will begin winding down Copilot on mobile and will stop development of Copilot on console", as they move to "retire features that don’t align with where [they're] headed". It's positive news, if nowhere near as good as the company deciding to wipe all of its Copilot AI assistance tech from both PCs and face of the Earth.

In what feels very much like a bit of carefully co-ordinated PR timing, the exec's revealed this nixing of some Copilot plans alongside revealing that she's promoted a bunch of her colleagues from her time running Microsoft's CoreAI division into leadership roles at Xbox.

Jared Palmer, an ex-CoreAI division vice president, is now Xbox's vice president of engineering and a technical advisor to Sharma. CoreAI vice president of design Tim Allen's been elevated to Xbox's corporate vice president of design. Jonathan McKay, a former head of growth and revenue on OpenAI's ChatGPT, is now Xbox’s head of growth. Finally, the four AI execs getting promotions are rounded out by Evan Chaki, who's gone from being a general manager in the CoreAI division run an Xbox engineering group focused on removing repetitive work and simplifying development.

Meanwhile, David Schloss has been plucked from grocery delivery service Instacart, where Sharma worked from 2021 to 2024, to be Xbox's head of subscriptions and cloud. Lest we all think Sharma's solely inviting her AI mates over, long-time Xbox execs Jason Ronald, Jason Beaumont, Fatima Kardar, and Jenn Creegan have all been given new roles in this round of corporate musical chairs, while fellow tenured Xboxers Kevin Gammill and Roanne Sones are headed wherever business types go when they step down from a gig. I assume some sort of LinkedIn-themed butterfly farm.

For what it's worth, IGN have indicated that from what they know, none of this is emblematic of Xbox's previous stance on AI changing. "Today, we promoted leaders who helped build Xbox, while also bringing in new voices to help push us forward," Sharma proclaimed in her post. "This balance is important as we get the business back on track."

So, to my eye it's all yet more shuffling with the main goal of helping Sharma try to get as many moneypeople and players to warm to her as possible, as she carries on trying to mark herself out as different to the previous regime, who're no longer sitting in big Microsoft chairs calling for their heralds to send forth these sorts of proclamations.