With the announcement of Amazon Alexa coming to Windows 10 via OEM’s PC many people including me speculated that it could be the end of the road for Cortana. We haven’t seen the promised Alexa / Cortana Integration yet and we only have a couple of 3rd party devices supporting Microsoft’s AI assistant.

Microsoft must be aware of the speculation as on a blog post yesterday they confirmed the expansion of Cortana in 2018. Microsoft say that we are going to see Cortana on various devices this year as they say their goal is to “put Cortana everywhere you need assistance, whether that is on your PC, phone, Xbox, mixed reality headsets, intelligent home speakers, thermostats and even more in the future”. It remains to be seen if that actually means more devices having Cortana and if Cortana will have the skills to control more smart home devices. Cortana is more than just the voice control as it’s really more of a front end to Microsoft’s Bing and AI systems.

It will be interesting to revisit this post in 2019 and see if Cortana really does progress in 2018.

With the support of both existing and new partnerships, we’re continuing to bring Cortana to even more places in the office, at home and on the go. Regardless of the device or context, our goal is to put Cortana everywhere you need assistance, whether that is on your PC, phone, Xbox, mixed reality headsets, intelligent home speakers, thermostats and even more in the future. You’ll continue to see Cortana integrated on your favorite devices and services throughout the year to come.

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