Amazon and Microsoft’s digital assistants have ceased to collaborate. Cortana and Alexa’s collaboration stopped in September 2021, yet nobody seemed to notice, as PCMag reported. If you request Alexa to reach Cortana, Amazon’s virtual assistant will respond with the message “sorry, the Cortana skill is no longer available.”
“As of Sept. 18, we decided to end the Cortana on Alexa experience as it previously existed and shift our Cortana resources to focus on productivity within Microsoft 365,” a Microsoft spokesperson revealed to PCMag.
Cortana and Alexa integration required numerous steps to complete. Essentially, you would request the assistance to summon the assistance of the other. This was often superfluous, as both assistants could accomplish similar roles. Since the revelation of the merger, the focus of Amazon’s Cortana has changed.
According to Microsoft, consumers were notified about the shift through “in-product emails leading up to Sept. 18.” However, some did not receive any notification, rather they discovered the problem when they attempted to use an Echo device to call Cortana.
Cortana has been repositioned by Microsoft as an efficient digital assistant that unifies with Microsoft 365 apps like Outlook, and Teams. Cortana steadily lost user functionality during the transition, culminating in the demise of support last year. Cortana, on the other hand, can now execute jobs like reading your emails.
The Harman Kardon Invoke speaker was no longer supported by Cortana as of June 2021. As of writing, Windows 11 includes Cortana, although it is not loaded by default. This is not shocking that Alexa and Cortana’s connectivity ended, but, strangely, no one noticed for a few months.
Putting into the words of Microsoft- We remain committed to the Voice Interoperability Initiative and value our ongoing relationship with Amazon. We will continue to partner together on innovations both with assistants and agents and via other products and services.”
With Cortana barely an element of Windows 11 experience, Microsoft appears to be cutting ties with the voice assistant. Although Alexa and Google Assistant are undoubtedly popular, Microsoft’s assistant does not appear to have achieved the same deal of attention.