Microsoft announced a significant gaming shake-up on Friday, with Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer departing the corporate, together with Xbox president Sarah Bond.
Spencer will probably be replaced by former Instacart and Meta executive Asha Sharma. With Sharma’s most up-to-date role because the president of Microsoft’s CoreAI product, these moves suggest that Microsoft could be doubling down on bringing AI into video games.
The corporate had already been experimenting with ways to mix AI and gaming — for instance, developing an AI gaming companion and releasing a buggy, AI-generated level from Quake II.
Indeed, in an internal memo published by The Verge, Sharma wrote that Microsoft “will invent recent business models and recent ways to play” and said that “monetization and AI” will each “evolve and influence this future.” At the identical time, she said that the corporate “won’t chase short-term efficiency or flood our ecosystem with soulless AI slop.”
“Games are and all the time will probably be art, crafted by humans, and created with essentially the most modern technology provided by us,” Sharma added.
That’s just one among three “commitments” Sharma made in her memo. The others involve constructing “great games beloved by players” and prioritizing Xbox.