Rumor: Cortana will be Microsoft Office Assistant instead of Alexa competitor

Cortana is no longer part of Microsoft’s AI & Research division, but of the business unit that focuses on Office, among other things. Microsoft no longer seems to position Cortana as a competitor for Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant.

Based on an internal source, the Petri site was the first to report that the Cortana team is no longer in the AI ​​& Research division, after which ZDNet received confirmation. The Cortana developers now fall under Experiences & Devices, which includes Windows, Office, and the Surface products.

According to Petri, Cortana falls under Office and it is to be expected that the personal assistant will therefore no longer be developed as a separate product, but as a tool for Microsoft’s productivity software. Furthermore, the move would indicate that Microsoft wants to take a different course with Cortana and has dropped its plan to compete with Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant and Apple’s Siri.

It has been clear for some time that Alexa and Google Assistant dominate the market for voice assistants by far. Microsoft was especially behind in finding partners to build Cortana support into devices. The software developer has been working with Amazon for some time to link Alexa and Cortana, and the Xbox One now also has support for Alexa devices.

It is also striking that Microsoft has introduced Cortana less as a personal assistant in Windows 10 since the October 2018 Update. The service is now part of Cortana & Search there. Incidentally, Cortana already offers support in Office, for example with reminders.