Rebirth? The Windows 10 May 2020 Update is here, and one of its most notable new features is a completely redefined Cortana experience that reimagines the digital assistant as an application.
However, some things have been lost in transition here.
Things like the Alexa skill for Cortana, which is now well and truly missing from the platform.
As reported, the new version of Cortana that launched with the May 2020 Update cannot respond to Alexa queries. And this is important, as many users made use of this integration, despite Amazon having coded up a dedicated app for Alexa on Windows 10.
That said, this does not mean that the skill is permanently gone, as Microsoft does have plans to continue to work closely with Amazon on digital assistants.
According to Andrew Shuman, the Cortana lead over at Redmond:
“It’s not in this version, but we continue to work really closely with Amazon to think about new ways to bring the two systems together. There’s so many things that of course Amazon does well that we’re not going to do, and that starts with e-commerce and all those great experiences. So we’ll be bridging those in thoughtful ways, but we wanted to get started on a core set of first-party things that we can be great at.”
Hmm.
All this should not come as too big a surprise, as Microsoft has been in the process of moving Cortana away from a personal assistant in order to make her more of a productivity assistant.
This is why Cortana was discontinued on both Android and iOS, as well as the Xbox One console. In their stead, the digital voice assistant has been pushed into Outlook and other Microsoft 365 products and services to read aloud emails and help with scheduling and management.
Rebirth.
