Microsoft’s Cortana to stop competing with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant

THE WINDOWS DIGITAL ASSISTANT COULD ASSIST OTHER VOICE ASSISTANTS.

MICROSOFT’S CEO SATYA Nadella as conceded that Cortana isn’t being positioned to compete with either Alexa or Google Assistant. Instead of being rivals, Nadella sees Cortana being integrated into the competition as an additional skill, saying “Would it be better off, for example, to make Cortana a valuable skill that someone who is using Alexa can call? Or should we try to compete with Alexa? We, quite frankly, decided that we would do the former. Because Cortana needs to be that skill for anyone who is a Microsoft Office 365 subscriber.” If that happens, Nadella observed that users should be able to use Cortana on any Alexa or Google Assistant-enabled device like any other Microsoft app on Android or iOS.

In fact, Nadella doesn’t think Cortana will find her way into smart speakers either, adding, “We are very mindful of the categories we enter where we can do something unique. A good one is speakers. To me the challenge is, exactly what would we be able to do in that category that is going to be unique?” However, that doesn’t mean Microsoft won’t be pushing Cortana within its own ecosystem, despite offering Amazon’s Alexa already built into selected laptops and PCs.