While Microsoft and Amazon were reported to be working on integrating their respective digital assistants, Alexa and Cortana, now the companies have announced the milestone of the two assistants serving as skills in their respective platforms.
The integration was demonstrated earlier at Microsoft’s Build developer conference earlier in the year, as the company sought feedback from the respective communities before bringing it to live for everyone.
What it means is that users on both platforms can now summon either of the assistant irrespective of platform; and for Amazon customers by the simple phrase, "Alexa, open Cortana” to launch Cortana on any Echo device, and on Windows 10 PCs and other Cortana-powered devices, users can summon Alexa by the phrase, “Hey Cortana, open Alexa” to avail the full functions.
As both Cortana and Alexa will be enabled as a skill on each others platform, it affords users the ability to call upon Cortana from an Echo device and get access to same Windows / Office specific features that are formerly exclusive to the digital assistant.
Albeit, this initial integration is rather too basic, as it assiduously requires that users must summon the respective digital assistant to get through to the specific service.
The cross-platform integration, however holds the possibility that these artificial intelligence agents may someday be smart enough to route requests to the best suitable virtual assistant for a particular task without a specific “Alexa” or “Cortana” command.
No comments