Windows 10 users can just say "Hey Cortana, open Alexa" and Echo users can say "Alexa, open Cortana" to summon the other assistant. This feature preview was released in August 2018. In 2017, Microsoft partnered with Amazon to integrate Echo and Cortana with each other, allowing users of each smart assistant to summon the other via a command.
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ĭuring E3 2015, Microsoft announced that Cortana would come to the Xbox One as part of a universally designed Windows 10 update for the console. It was officially released, along with an iOS version, in December 2015.
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An Android release was set for July 2015, but an Android APK file containing Cortana has leaked ahead of its release. On May 26, 2015, Microsoft announced that Cortana would also be available on other mobile platforms. In January 2015, Microsoft announced the availability of Cortana for Windows 10 desktops and mobile devices as part of merging Windows Phone into the operating system at large. Expansion to other platforms Ĭortana white interface on Windows 10 Mobile Originally Cortana was only meant to be a codename, but a petition on Windows Phone's UserVoice site that proved to be popular made the codename official. These interviews inspired a number of unique features in Cortana, including the assistant's "notebook" feature. To develop the Cortana digital assistant, the team interviewed human personal assistants. Some of the key researchers in these early efforts included Microsoft Research researchers Dilek Hakkani-Tür, Gokhan Tur, Andreas Stolcke, and Malcolm Slaney, research software developer Madhu Chinthakunta, and user experience designer Lisa Stifelman.
Heck and Serafin established the vision, mission, and long-range plan for Microsoft's digital personal assistant and they built a team with the expertise to create the initial prototypes for Cortana. The development of Cortana started in 2009 in the Microsoft Speech products team with general manager Zig Serafin and Chief Scientist Larry Heck. It is named after Cortana, a synthetic intelligence character in Microsoft's Halo video game franchise originating in Bungie folklore, with Jen Taylor, the character's voice actress, returning to voice the personal assistant's US-specific version. It has been launched as a key ingredient of Microsoft's planned "makeover" of the future operating systems for Windows Phone and Windows.