In the midst of swirling skepticism concerning the appointment of new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, who spent the last two years as president of Microsoft’s CoreAI Product group, Sharma and new Xbox Chief Content Officer Matt Booty have discussed the role AI will play at Xbox.
In an interview with Windows Central, the pair explained there will be no internal pressure on developers to use AI, and that the Xbox ecosystem will not be compromised by “slop.”
“I think that with any new technology, it brings possibilities as a tool, but even more important, especially now – we need to draw lines on what we won’t do,” said Sharma. “That’s what I attempted to do when I shared my opening letter. I will not flood our ecosystem with slop.”
“We won’t have careless output, we won’t have derivative work. I deeply believe in the words that I shared previously there.”
Booty noted that, while game developers are typically quick to experiment with new technology, Xbox’s goal for AI will be for it to function in a complementary role.
“Just as a group, game developers are always eager to adopt new technology,” said Booty. “When Photoshop showed up, it took about one month for it to appear in every game studio on the planet because it was so useful.”
“What I hear throughout our studios: it is the people, our artists, our coders, the writers – they’re doing the creative work. In my experience, any time there’s a new technology, what happens is there’s a need for more specialists, new specialists. It raises the bar on what the expectations are for the quality of the games.”
According to Booty, Xbox developers will not be forced to use AI, and having people behind the art Xbox makes is still the priority.
“We’ve got no pressure from Microsoft, there are no directives on AI coming down,” said Booty. “Our teams are free to use any technologies that might be beneficial, whether it’s helping write code or check for bugs – things more in the production pipeline. At the end of the day as Asha said, we’re committed to art made by people. Technology is only in support of that.”
IGN has more on the seismic leadership shake-up at Xbox, including Sharma’s response to concerns around her AI work for Microsoft and her lack of gaming industry job experience, and how Xbox fans shouldn’t read too much into her apparent Xbox play history.
Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN reviews team. You can track him down on Bluesky @mrlukereilly to ask him things about stuff.
