{"id":296390,"date":"2026-02-22T08:37:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T08:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/296390\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T08:37:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T08:37:13","slug":"microsofts-new-gaming-ceo-vows-not-to-flood-the-ecosystem-with-endless-ai-slop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/296390\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft\u2019s new gaming CEO vows not to flood the ecosystem with \u2018endless AI slop\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Microsoft announced a major gaming shakeup on Friday, with Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer departing the company, along with Xbox President Sarah Bond.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Spencer will be replaced by former Instacart and Meta executive Asha Sharma. With Sharma\u2019s most recent role as the president of Microsoft\u2019s CoreAI product, these moves suggest that Microsoft might be doubling down on bringing AI into video games.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The company had already been experimenting with ways to combine AI and gaming, for example <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/03\/13\/xbox-debuts-a-new-ai-powered-gaming-companion\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">developing an AI gaming companion<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/04\/06\/microsoft-releases-ai-generated-quake-ii-demo-but-admits-limitations\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">releasing a buggy, AI-generated level from \u201cQuake II.\u201d\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Indeed, in an internal memo <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/games\/882326\/read-microsoft-gaming-ceo-asha-sharma-first-memo\" target=\"_blank\">published by The Verge<\/a>, Sharma wrote that Microsoft \u201cwill invent new business models and new ways to play\u201d and said that \u201cmonetization and AI\u201d will both \u201cevolve and influence this future.\u201d At the same time, she said that the company \u201cwill not chase short-term efficiency or flood our ecosystem with soulless AI slop.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cGames are and always will be art, crafted by humans, and created with the most innovative technology provided by us,\u201d Sharma added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That\u2019s just one of three \u201ccommitments\u201d Sharma made in her memo. The others involve building \u201cgreat games beloved by players\u201d and prioritizing Xbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Microsoft announced a major gaming shakeup on Friday, with Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer departing the company, along&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,363,364,162530,609,111,139,69,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-296390","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-asha-sharma","12":"tag-microsoft","13":"tag-new-zealand","14":"tag-newzealand","15":"tag-nz","16":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}