Good morning. Wow, it’s already the last week of February. Before you know it, it will be June and time for Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference (25th anniversary edition!).
In the meantime, there’s some big events on this week’s calendar, with Nvidia’s Wednesday earnings at the top of the list (How much money did Jensen rake in this quarter?). Also on Wednesday, Samsung is hosting a big event in San Francisco where it’s expected to show off its latest Galaxy smartphones and other goodies ahead of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week.
Alexei Oreskovic
@lexnfx
alexei.oreskovic@fortune.com
Want to send thoughts or suggestions to Fortune Tech? Drop a line here.
Microsoft gaming biz exits the 'Phil Zone'
Phil Spencer, the CEO of Microsoft’s $23 billion gaming business, is stepping down after 12 years at the helm. Stepping up is Asha Sharma, a Microsoft AI executive whose resume includes past stints at Instacart and Meta.
Spencer had made clear his intention to retire a year ago, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in an email to employees on Friday. But the leadership change signaled a pivot in strategy, with Sharma vowing to “recommit” to the Xbox console business. “We will celebrate our roots with a renewed commitment to Xbox starting with console, which has shaped who we are,” Sharma wrote in a note to staff. Sarah Bond, the President and COO of Xbox, who had been considered Spencer’s heir apparent, is also leaving the company.
While Spencer helped make the Xbox business into what it is today, Microsoft’s gaming business has struggled in recent years. Xbox hardware revenue has declined amid competition from Sony PlayStation and Nintendo Switch consoles, and Microsoft’s focus on games and PC games, including the $75 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, has faced challenges. Since 2024, Microsoft’s gaming business has laid off more than 2,500 employees, Bloomberg reported citing an industry research firm.
The choice of Sharma, who has no experience in the gaming industry, fed speculation that Microsoft plans to “shove AI into everything at Xbox,” as one wag commented on X. Perhaps anticipating the criticism, Sharma assured staff in her introductory note that “we will not chase short-term efficiency or flood our ecosystem with soulless AI slop.” —AO
Sam Altman sees 'AI washing'
As debate continues over AI’s true impact on the labor force, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said some companies are engaging in “AI washing” when it comes to layoffs.
“I don’t know what the exact percentage is, but there’s some AI washing where people are blaming AI for layoffs that they would otherwise do, and then there’s some real displacement by AI of different kinds of jobs,” Altman told CNBC-TV18 at the India AI Impact Summit last week.
Business leaders and economists are paying close attention to AI's impact on jobs, analyzing mixed data. A recent National Bureau of Economic Research survey of thousands of execs found nearly 90% said AI had no impact on employment over the past three years. Yet several prominent business leaders, including Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski, have said they intend to reduce headcount in the coming years partly due to the acceleration of AI.
Altman noted that he anticipates more job displacement as a result of AI, as well as the emergence of new roles complementing the technology. “We’ll find new kinds of jobs, as we do with every tech revolution,” he said. “But I would expect that the real impact of AI doing jobs in the next few years will begin to be palpable.”—Sasha Rogelberg
Anthropic unveils Claude Security
Anthropic has rolled out a new tool focused on cybersecurity, harnessing the power of AI to detect vulnerabilities that humans can miss.
Claude Code Security, the company’s first product aimed for security teams, is intended to help staffers keep up with the flood of software bugs they’re responsible for fixing. Unpatched software bugs are a leading cause of data breaches, outages, and regulatory headaches for large companies—while security teams are often overwhelmed by how much code they have to protect.
The tool is being released cautiously as a limited research preview for its Enterprise and Team customers. Anthropic is also giving free expedited access to maintainers of open-source repositories—the often under-resourced developers responsible for keeping widely used public software running safely.—Sharon Goldman
More tech
—Trump demands Netflix fire director Susan Rice. Or ‘pay the consequences’
—OpenAI forecasts revenue will top $280 billion in 2030
—Apple CEO Tim Cook has new buzzword: Visual Intelligence
—Are Instagram beauty filters harming teen girls? Meta trial puts self-proclaimed ‘girl dad’ Mark Zuckerberg on the spot
—AI-armed hackers breached 600 firewalls. Amazon has a report with the deetes.
