Overview
- The Federal Reserve on July 9 named Asha Sharma co-leader of its Productivity and Jobs task force alongside Marc Andreessen and Stanford economist Charles I. Jones.
- Sharma announced a major Xbox restructuring that will cut roughly 3,200 jobs on July 6, and that timing has drawn sharp public and media criticism over optics and messaging.
- The Productivity and Jobs group is charged with assessing how general-purpose technologies, including artificial intelligence, affect productivity, employment, and the inflation outlook to inform the FOMC.
- Supporters point to Sharma’s recent role running Microsoft’s CoreAI as rare operational AI experience for a Fed adviser, while critics warn her active corporate role and the presence of venture-capital and Big Tech figures raise conflict and influence concerns.
- The five task forces launched by Chair Kevin Warsh will produce evidence-based findings for the FOMC later in 2026, and their conclusions could change Fed models and the outlook for interest-rate decisions if they find durable AI-driven productivity shifts or near-term inflation pressures.