Microsoft's Andrew Shuman talks about the future of Cortana: Alexa integration

A few weeks ago we already saw how Cortana began a turn in the business market. It was Microsoft itself that was in charge of notifying him by informing him that as of January 31, 2020, support for the Cortana application would end in Australia, Canada, China, Germany, India, Mexico, Spain and the United Kingdom.

And now, Andrew Shuman, corporate vice president of Cortana, in a statement to VentureBeat talks about the end of Cortana on iOS and Android, its integration with Alexa, the privacy of the data collected or how it will affect users of the assistant for their daily tasks.

Presence on iOS and Android

To begin with, Shuman stated that Cortana will only be functional for users in the United States This means that together with the aforementioned countries It will also pass away in others, such as Japan. And this has an effect that we have already seen. We customized it in Invoke after hearing complaints from users who couldn't use some features due to the disappearance of Cortana.

And it's notable that Microsoft sells Surface headphones in Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, and Switzerland when buyers won't be able to use one of the pillars they boast After January 30, Cortana will only be usable with iOS and Android by those with Surface Headphones in the United States. In the rest of the countries they will only be usable under Windows

In the same sense, Shuman announced that Microsoft will launch a Surface Audio application for Windows, iOS and Android that allows use with Surface Buds and also with Surface Headphones, an application that will include Cortana functions.

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In reference to Cortana, Shuman indicates the reason why they have decided to remove Cortana from iOS and Android and that is that Microsoft&39;s assistant has not been widely accepted outside of the US market The United States will be both the market for its use and a testing niche as the attendee landscape is rich in opportunities, and very little rich in real results, sometimes and for So the opportunity to keep trying things quickly is also important to us."

He also reported that the integration of Cortana with Office and in the future with Teams, within the Windows ecosystem, is due to the good performance in the markets in which it is present.Countries where users focus on productivity and therefore will strive to improve it within Office and Windows".

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Shuman stated that they have a reasonable amount of use although it is still a very new experience and also referred to the work at the time of integrate most Office applications."

Cortana and Alexa

The relationship between the two assistants also had a place in the opinions expressed by Shuman when he affirmed that they are still working on the integration between Cortana and Alexa Shuman talked about some of the future plans since Alexa came to Windows and Cortana to Amazon Echo speakers:

The privacy of the data collected also had its section, as Shuman stated that Microsoft is aware of the importance of user data, especially when it skips the cleaner consumer space to the business and office market, a fact that prompted Microsoft, in August, to update its privacy policy to say that employees or contractors can listen to Cortana and Skype Translator recordings .

It is clear that at Microsoft they still think about Cortana but they do it in a much more realistic way. The market has put Cortana in its place in relation to the other actors and now from the American company they have a great job ahead of them to find a place where Cortana can demonstrate its potential.

Source | VentureBeat