Phil Spencer wrote a memo about the new leadership changes

Microsoft’s Changing Role in Gaming and AI: Beyond Activision Blizzard, Booty’s Edge, and Xbox Game Pass

Microsoft’s reorgs here are clearly about its potential in gaming and AI. We’re doubling down on our gaming business because of our recent acquisition, says Nadella. Microsoft closed its Activision Blizzard acquisition earlier this month, with plans to announce which games are coming to Xbox Game Pass in the coming months.

Booty’s expanded role should help Microsoft Gaming avoid scenarios like Redfall in the future, with Microsoft clearly focusing on better collaboration between the teams it acquired with the ZeniMax / Bethesda acquisition.

Jamie Leder, the President and CEO of ZeniMax, will be reporting to Matt. All ZeniMax development studios and ZeniMax Central Services teams will continue reporting to Jamie to maintain and optimize current content development and production cycles. To accelerate mutual learning and deepen our partnership a number of ZeniMax leaders will now report to those Microsoft leaders with whom their work closely meshes.

Bond’s new role is to be responsible for both hardware and software for the future of Xbox, and may include a next-gen hybrid console in about two decades.

Capossela has been at Microsoft for 32 years and famously appeared onstage alongside co-founder Bill Gates during a presentation where a prerelease version of Windows 98 crashed into a Blue Screen of Death. Capossela has led marketing at Microsoft for decades, throughout the transition to cloud, the launch of Xbox, and many more moments.

In a memo, he says Yusuf will serve as the champion of our end-user experiences and build on his work launching several of our services to lead Microsoft Copilot product marketing. “He will also continue to lead our Search, Ad, & News and Devices & Creativity Customer Solution Areas (CSAs).”

Microsoft has been integrating AI into Windows, Office apps, Bing, and much more in an attempt to be an early leader in AI. Microsoft 365 Copilot launches next week, allowing businesses to generate emails, rewrite paragraphs, analyze Excel data, and a lot more. Nadella discussed the potential for AI during Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit earlier this week.

“When Windows first came together we had the Start button, the Copilot is like the Start button,” said Nadella earlier this week. “It becomes the orchestrator of all your app experiences. So for example, I just go there and express my intent and it either navigates me to an application or it brings the application to the Copilot, so it helps me learn, query and create — and completely changes, I think, the user habits.”

An Overview of Microsoft Gaming: Bringing the New Game Pass to the End of the Segmentation Era and Joining Microsoft with an Improved Mission

Microsoft Gaming is on a multi-year journey to reach players where they are, on the devices they choose to play, and our strategy is working. We’ve got 13 $1 billion+ franchises in our portfolio and we just set new records in Game Pass. It is important to structure ourselves to sustain that momentum with transparency and accountability across gaming. In that spirit, we are making the following organizational changes effective today:

Continuing in their current roles on my team are Bobby Kotick (Chief Executive Officer, Activision Blizzard, through the end of 2023), Joslyn Main (General Manager, Chief of Staff), Cynthia Per-Lee (Corporate Vice President, Human Resources), Kari Perez (General Manager, Communications), Linda Norman (Corporate Vice President, CELA) and Tim Stuart (Corporate Vice President, Finance).

I’m excited to partner with this team of leaders to advance our mission for the next era of Xbox in service of players and creators. I am confident that they will steer our organization to success in the months and years to come. Ami and her team will be welcomed by me, as will Matt, Sarah and Dave.

Emails are just one vehicle to communicate change. Your manager and leader are going to tell you more about how these changes may or may not affect your work. During our next town hall on Monday October 30th at 1:00PM, we will discuss this evolution of our organization. We appreciate everything you do to bring the joy of gaming to everyone.