Microsoft seems to be giving up on its ambitions to dominate the voice powered virtual assistant arena and will reportedly be focusing on building Cortana as a skill for the competing platforms like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.
Speaking to journalists at a media event earlier this week Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella revealed that Microsoft no longer sees Cortana as a competitor to Alexa or Google Assistant. He said, the company is looking for a major shift in its Cortana strategy. Cortana is a voice-powered virtual assistant that was introduced back in 2014 for the Windows Phone devices. Later It was released for Windows 10 and other platforms. Cortana needs to be that skill for anybody who is a Microsoft 365 subscriber.
Microsoft now wants to take Cortana to Google Assistant. Although the company currently doesn’t have a partnership with Google, but it is actively planning to take Cortana to the search giant’s digital assistant.
Satya Nadella added, “You should be able to use Cortana on Google Assistant, you should be able to use it on Alexa, just like how you use our apps on Android and iOS so that’s at least how we want to think about where it will go.”
It is now clear that Satya Nadella sees Cortana as an app or service that will work across the multiple platforms, rather than Microsoft competing in Cortana hardware for the consumers.
Microsoft is now in the middle of repositioning Cortana on Windows 10, including separating it from search and silencing the digital assistant during setup.