Alexa And Cortana Part Their Ways

Microsoft and Amazon have been working together since 2017 so that users of their own voice assistants can also access the other assistants. Now the cooperation seems to have ended. In the future, Cortana and Alexa will then go their separate ways.

Microsoft had developed a Cortana skill that Alexa users could install on their voice assistant. The skill can then also be used to ask Cortana for information. In addition, the Redmond-based support for Alexa-built into the Cortana service. This gave Windows 10 users the opportunity to use Alexa skills on their PC.

In the meantime, however, there is also an Alexa app that is preinstalled on numerous PCs. This means that the detour via Cortana is no longer necessary. In addition, the Alexa integration is likely to have only been used by a few users anyway, so it is no longer worthwhile for Microsoft to support Amazon’s voice assistant.

Ended in September

That’s why Amazon and Microsoft ended their partnership on September 18, according to PCMag. Since neither the Redmond company nor the mail-order company had published an official blog post on the subject, the end of the cooperation was only now noticed.

Microsoft is said to have informed users about the end of the Alexa integration via a notification. For many users, however, the message did not appear. The Redmond company seems to attach less and less importance to Cortana. The Cortana application for Android and iOS has not been further developed since last year. On Windows 10, the range of functions of the voice assistant has also been slimmed down.