Microsoft is bringing Cortana out of Windows — the AI ​​Copilot tool is taking over

Cortana will disappear from Windows at the end of this year. Microsoft announced this in a blog post. According to this announcement, Cortana for Windows will be discontinued, but language support will continue. Above all, the company is banking on new AI tools like Copilot, which are meant to partially take over Cortana’s functionality. In doing so, Microsoft is finally ending its efforts to offer something akin to competing “smart” voice assistants Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Google Assistant. Instead, Microsoft is relying on OpenAI’s ChatGPT AI integration, in which the company has already invested a lot of money. Microsoft had already discontinued the Cortana app for iOS and Android mobile operating systems in 2021.

Microsoft provides no reasons in the blog post Step by step to install Cortana app. The end of Cortana only affects the Windows app, in mobile versions of Outlook and Teams as well as in Teams screens (Teams view) and Teams rooms (Teams Rooms) The Productivity Assistant must remain available.

He must take over the search for the AI ​​and the co-pilot

However, the company explains the alternatives under Windows for the functionality that will disappear with the Cortana app: Under Windows 11, future Cortana users will use built-in voice control, which can be used to perform certain tasks and dictations on a PC using voice commands. Anyone who wants to ask questions should use the renewed Bing search engine. Recently AI has been used via ChatGPT to give answers to questions as accurately as possible rather than just providing web links. In addition, a new function called Copilot in Microsoft 365 and from June also in a new version of Windows 11 should take over the tasks of the “smart” assistant. The copilot should be extensible with plug-ins as well as improve the Chrome-based Edge browser.

Cortana was first introduced in 2014 and was first available on the long gone Windows Phone operating system. Later it was also available on Windows 10 as well as Android. After a brief partnership with Amazon, in which the two companies linked their voice assistants, Microsoft canceled the project in 2019 and announced a phased adoption of Cortana. Among them was the announcement of the cancellation of iOS and Android apps, which happened in 2021.

(i)