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Once upon a time, voice assistants became one of the necessary functions on smart devices such as mobile phones and computers. In a short time, Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana (Cortana), Google’s Assistant, Samsung’s Bixby, Xiaomi’s Xiaoai, Huawei’s The Ceila etc. are endless.
Today, under the impact of generative AI such as ChatGPT and Copilot, if these voice assistants cannot keep up with the trend of the times, they are destined to be submerged in the long river of history. Microsoft's Cortana is a living example.
According to foreign media Windows Last, Microsoft has accelerated its plan to eliminate Cortana. It recently announced that it has canceled the independent Cortana application in Windows 11, and it is the Windows Copilot that Microsoft is now recommending.
This also makes everyone define Cortana as the first personal voice assistant eliminated by AI.
Cortana is disabled on Windows 11
Cortana is a personal assistant product that Microsoft debuted at the Build developer conference held in April 2014. In the same year, Microsoft released the name "Xiaona" as the Chinese name for Cortana in mainland China.
Once released at that time, it attracted the attention of many people. This so-called "world's first cross-platform intelligent personal assistant" Cortana can set reminders, recognize voice without keyboard input, and can also answer questions and perform simple tasks.
Plus, somewhat like Siri on iOS and Google Now on Android, Cortana didn't start out on desktops and laptops, but on Microsoft's ill-fated Windows Phone 8.1 operating system.
Perhaps many people are not unfamiliar, the code name Cortana is taken from the name of the artificial intelligence that accompanied the protagonist Master Chief in the "Halo" series of games.
However, although Cortana's reputation is loud, it has not captured the hearts of many users, which forced Microsoft to re-examine Cortana.
In 2019, Cortana was decoupled from Windows Search (meaning you had to specifically invoke Cortana to use it), and that summer it was pulled from the Xbox platform.
In February 2020, Microsoft announced that various consumer "skills" including music and home controls would be removed from Cortana as it was repositioned as the "personal productivity assistant in Microsoft 365."
In the subsequent release of Windows 10, Cortana was completely separated from Windows Search and ran as a separate application.
In March 2021, Harmon Kardon removed Cortana from its Invoke speakers via a firmware update, not just from new speakers, but from existing speakers as well.
In the same year, Microsoft officially announced that its Cortana application for iOS and Android systems will officially stop serving on March 31, 2021.
Then, in June of this year, Microsoft focused its attention on Cortana on the Windows platform, trying to kill it.
At that time, Microsoft announced:
"We are making some changes to Windows that will affect users of the Cortana app. Starting in late 2023, we will no longer support Cortana in Windows as a standalone app..."
Now only in August, Microsoft began to "can't wait". With the new Microsoft Store update that Microsoft rolled out to some Windows 11 users, the standalone Personal Assistant app was turned off.
That means, if you currently have the app installed on your Windows 11 system, it's time to uninstall it, because when you open it, you'll get a pop-up message saying Cortana is deprecated.
Windows 10 is here, but it won't last long
It’s worth mentioning that while the app has stopped working on Windows 11, it still works on Windows 10 and is scheduled to receive updates until October 2025.
However, WindowsLast revealed that a source close to Microsoft confirmed that Microsoft plans to shut down the app on Windows 10 within a few weeks.
Additionally, while Microsoft has removed Cortana from the Android version of the Microsoft Launcher and elsewhere, it's still available in mobile apps like Outlook, Teams, and Teams rooms.
What caused Cortana's "death"?
As a strong competitor of Apple Siri, the failure of Cortana has also made everyone sigh. What killed Cortana?
Some people say that it is a product problem;
Some people also said that it is a Microsoft management problem;
Others say that it was eliminated by AI.
In fact, over the years, when we mentioned the Cortana brand, Microsoft has the shadow of AI or machine learning.
Therefore, as a cutting-edge product that has begun AI exploration many years ago, Microsoft has brought Cortana to Windows 10, iOS and Android devices and Xbox game consoles since 2015, which actually has great advantages.
Logically speaking, if Microsoft focuses on development, Cortana should be like Siri today, thinking about how to combine with generative AI products such as ChatGPT, instead of going downhill.
In reality, there are multiple reasons for Cortana's failure.
One, Microsoft's ambition, hoping that Cortana can rule everything
From Microsoft's early strategy, it is not difficult to find that Microsoft's positioning of Cortana is far from being limited to computers, game consoles and mobile devices, but has a larger plan.
Back then, Microsoft wanted Cortana to do everything Amazon's Alexa could, including controlling smart homes, being built into speakers to help people manage their lives, and giving individuals and businesses a myriad of "skills" that would allow them to do things like Schedule meetings, search for information, book flights, and more.
Back then, Alexa was way ahead of Cortana. According to ComputerWorld, in order to capitalize on the success of Alexa, Microsoft reached an agreement with Amazon in 2017 to allow Cortana to work with Alexa and use Alexa's functions.
But even that deal won't make Cortana a success. Consumers and businesses are simply not interested. Despite Microsoft's strong market clout, it was only able to convince one company to build Cortana into a smart speaker, and that was the Harmon Kardon Invoke, launched in October 2017.
However, so few people bought it that shortly after its release, its price was cut in half, from $200 to $100. It doesn't help either.
According to Canalys market research firm, in the first quarter of 2018, 3.2 million smart speakers with built-in Google technology were sold, 2.8 million speakers with built-in Alexa were sold, and sales of Cortana speakers were so small that they were almost negligible. .
Not only did this defeat Cortana, but it also frustrated Microsoft.
Second, the failure of the mobile terminal killed Cortana's most important platform
At the same time, in early 2015, Microsoft rebranded the operating system as Windows 10 Mobile and pushed for interoperability with Windows 10, but neither in app developers nor in end users, Microsoft could not compete with Android and iOS. gain an advantage in.
Based on this, Microsoft stopped the development of Windows Mobile in 2017, and stopped supporting the operating system in early 2020, declaring a complete failure of the mobile terminal, which also killed the most favorable platform for Cortana expansion.
Third, the main desktop platform is based on keyboard and mouse operations, and Cortana, as an independent application, has no advantages at all
After failing on the mobile side, Microsoft continued to integrate Cortana with more of its own business services and productivity applications, including the Edge browser, Office 365/Microsoft 365, Skype, Teams, Dynamics 365 and Azure, among others.
Meanwhile, Microsoft even offers a Cortana Skills Kit for consumers and businesses to extend Cortana's capabilities.
However, on the desktop platform where keyboard and mouse operations are the main platform, and Cortana is not built-in with the system, but an independent application exists, when we can clearly see that Microsoft is about to give up, we also know that voice interaction does not occupy much of the desktop. big advantage.
In this regard, Angela Ashenden, principal analyst at CCS Insight, once pointed out that part of the reason why Cortana cannot compete with Apple's Siri or Amazon's Alexa is that "Microsoft has not focused on consumers like Apple and Amazon, but also because the concept of assistants in laptops has never been as close as it is now." phones or smart speakers. Blurring Cortana and Search in Windows doesn’t help either.”
Cortana ends, Windows Copilot arrives
In addition to the above several important factors, the Windows Copilot brought by Microsoft this year became the last straw that crushed Cortana.
AI "will reshape the way you do everything on Windows," Microsoft chief product officer Panos Panay said at CES earlier this year.
In March of this year, Microsoft teamed up with OpenAI to upgrade its new Bing and Edge using large models, bringing features similar to Cortana, such as Bing Chat.
In addition, later this year, Windows 11 version 23H2 will also introduce Windows Copilot, a sidebar tool integrated into the operating system that can help users complete various tasks, such as content summarization, rewriting, interpretation, etc. More useful than Cortana.
The use of generative AI products such as large models has become an inevitable trend in the industry. Just a few days ago, there were media reports that Google plans to overhaul its smart assistant Assistant to add generative AI technologies like ChatGPT and Bard. As part of this plan, Google will begin to reorganize its Assistant team, and a few people will be laid off; according to foreign media Insider, Amazon has also laid off its Alexa department, and now Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is currently directly leading a team. The new team is working hard to build a large language model.....
However, for Cortana's exit, some netizens said, "Windows Copilot came out, and it has been expected today, but there are still regrets. I just hope that Amazon will not 'give up' easily, otherwise tens of millions of Alex devices will directly become Brick!"
reference:
https://www.windowslatest.com/2023/08/03/microsoft-just-killed-the-cortana-app-on-windows-11-in-favour-of-ai/
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3252218/cortana-explained-why-microsofts-virtual-assistant-is-wired-for-business.html
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