Microsoft’s Cortana originally released back in 2014 has made its way to a lot more devices compared to when it was initially launched. With over 162 million active users, Cortana is doing well. But some may be concerned about the announcement of Alexa being brought to Windows PC. However, this move doesn’t seem to be concerning Microsoft’s CEO.
On a call with investors on Wednesday, Nadella said: “That’s why we’re working with Alexa, and we would welcome it on our devices because we believe in a world where our own assistant should be available everywhere and so should other assistants be available on our devices.”
This clearly means that the giant is more into bringing other digital assistants just like Cortana is doing on other platforms. The basic idea behind this alliance is that each assistant has their own ability and would support the other to do the work resulting in a bond between the assistants helping other to do a task much easily.
Also Nadella, on the call, highlighted one advantage or a strength of Cortana that is the “crossover between work and life.” He also highlights that Cortana has a lot of information sourcing from Windows 10, Xbox, Office 365, etc. which sums up to a huge userbase that helps the assistant to be more personal and helpful.
Calling assistants “fairly dumb”, the company is really into AI and constantly improving it to have a conversation like a real human. Nadella is aiming a version of Cortana that can have a human-like continuous conversation but take a while.
The strategy, though seems good, is really risky as other digital assistants are constantly improving and are found on many devices along with new hardware being released as seen in CES2018. However, there is only one smart speaker launched with Cortana till now and maybe soon with the updated Cortana SDK, more products could be surface up with Cortana.
But with the ongoing reign of Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa, it would be difficult to stand out if it is too late.
What do you think about this?
