Farewell Cortana! Microsoft is about to end the standalone virtual assistant application built into Windows. Instead, you can rely on Copilot and other much more powerful AI tools.
Do you remember Cortana? Launched in 2014 on Windows Phone – Microsoft’s failed mobile operating system – and smart speakers to compete with Apple’s Siri, Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, the “smart” virtual assistant ” from Microsoft was then integrated into Windows 10 as standard. Like its counterparts, it works by voice, allows you to obtain all kinds of information (weather, meetings listed in the agenda, etc.) and performs various tasks, such as recording memos, sending emails or jotting down appointments. But Cortana did not have the expected success and, little by little, Microsoft ended up abandoning its intelligent assistant, to the point of ending Android and iOS applications in 2021. However, the Redmond firm had kept it as an assistant native virtual on Windows, with its own standalone application. But it is about to bow out at the end of 2023, as announced by the company in a blog post. And as much to say that she will not be missed by anyone!
End of Cortana: Microsoft Copilot takes over
In addition to failing to find its audience, Cortana’s end stems from Microsoft’s desire to integrate more and more AI into Windows 11 – and to make the most of its partnership. with OpenAI. Rest assured users! They will always have access to “powerful productivity features in Windows and Edge, both of which have artificial intelligence capabilities”. Indeed, the firm offers several alternatives, including voice commands. These allow you, for example, to open and switch between applications, to browse the web and to write e-mails. We will also be able to count on Bing Chat – now powered by GPT-4 –, but also on the Copilot assistant on Microsoft 365 (see our article) and recently announced on Windows 11.
The latter will take the form of a sidebar, accessible by clicking on a button in the taskbar, and will allow you to quickly carry out searches, explain a text, summarize an article, generate an image, or even change device settings. And by the time Cortana’s standalone app drops out of support at the end of the year, Copitlot should be rolling out to the stable version of Windows 11, given the frenetic pace the Redmond firm has adopted. . And the latter does not intend to stop there, since it plans to collaborate with third-party developers so that users have access “to augmented AI capabilities and experiences.” However, it specifies that if its application disappears, the voice assistant will continue to be present in Outlook mobile, Teams mobile, Microsoft Teams display and Microsoft Teams rooms.