Microsoft and Amazon are working on making each other’s digital assistants work together. From the end of this year, Alexa and Cortana will be able to call each other, but in the long run further integration of functionality will have to follow.
Microsoft and Amazon’s voice assistant partnership began in May 2016, The New York Times reported. Since then, both companies have been working on getting Alexa and Cortana to communicate with each other.
Initially, that collaboration doesn’t go beyond launching Cortana via Alexa and vice versa, followed by the voice command the user wants to give. The ultimate goal is that the assistants complement each other. As an example, Amazon gives Cortana’s deep integration with Outlook. In the future, users should be able to get answers to the same questions as via Cortana via Alexa, for example about appointments in calendars.
Amazon and Microsoft CEOs Jeff Bezos and Satya Nadella are open to working with Google and Apple to make their assistants interoperable as well. Alexa is the most commonly used assistant and it’s on Amazon’s own Echo speaker, but it’s also integrated into numerous third-party products. Cortana has been incorporated into Windows 10 PCs and is also coming to speakers from other manufacturers. Details about what the collaboration will look like in practice are not yet known. Microsoft and Amazon will officially announce the plans on Wednesday.
Update, 14.50: Amazon and Microsoft have provided more information about the plans. On Windows 10 PCs, users will be able to access Alexa via Cortana later this year. At a later date, this should also work with Cortana on Android and iOS. They can then ask “Hey Cortana, open Alexa” and then ask Amazon’s Alexa, for example, to place an order for a product or control smart home devices. Conversely, users with an Alexa-enabled device can, for example, via Cortana ask when meetings are scheduled in the Outlook calendar or have email read aloud.