Nadella wants Cortana to be used on Alexa
■ MS CEO says Cortana should be like any other app on Android, iOS
Microsoft is changing course with its Cortana digital assistant after it remained behind Google Assistant and Alexa.
Rather than viewing popular digital assistants from Google and Amazon as competitors, Microsoft now sees them as potential friends for Cortana.
This means Microsoft wants to turn Cortana from a stand-alone digital assistant into a skill that can be integrated and used on these services.
CEO Satya Nadella revealed that Microsoft no longer sees Cortana as a competitor to Alexa or Google Assistant.
“Cortana needs to be that skill for anybody who’s a Microsoft 365 subscriber,” explains Nadella, referencing Microsoft’s new consumer subscription push.
“You should be able to use it 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’ll go.”
Microsoft has already partnered with Amazon to enable Cortana and Alexa integration, and at the launch of the partnership Nadella compared digital assistants to web browsers that need to be interoperable and access similar information.
It’s now clear that Nadella sees Cortana as an app or service that will work across multiple platforms, rather than Microsoft competing in Cortana hardware for consumers.
Microsoft will still need to convince Google that Cortana integration is a good idea.
Instead of competing with Alexa, Nadella admits that there was a challenge of creating hardware and software that’s unique to compete. Microsoft chose to make Cortana “a valuable skill that somebody who is using Alexa can call,” instead of competing in smart speakers, and that’s probably why we haven’t seen many Cortana speakers.
We’ll still likely see Cortana appear in hardware like Surface Headphones in the future, though.
Microsoft moved Cortana out of its AI research division and into its Experiences and Devices team late last year, signaling Nadella’s focus on Cortana being an assistant across multiple products and platforms.
NADELLA SEES Cortana as an app or service that will work across multiple platforms, rather than Microsoft competing in Cortana hardware for consumers.
MICROSOFT WILL still need to convince Google that Cortana integration is a good idea.
IT HAS made Skype calling available on Alexa, though, and the Xbox One also now supports Alexa.