It’s official: Microsoft Cortana, the virtual assistant that took on Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa in the virtual assistant market, has been switched off for good.
The decision to set the virtual assistant to rest was made by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella earlier this year. In an official statement, he said: “We’re committed to applying the power of AI to projects that drive real impact for people and businesses. We’re no longer investing in the Cortana skills kit and Cortana in the consumer skills space.”
It’s a sad end for a beloved virtual assistant that was met with much fanfare when it was first unveiled in 2014. Designed to be able to respond to voice commands, Cortana was initially seen as a potential game-changer in the world of natural language processing. Unfortunately, it failed to keep up with the competition, with all the other leading virtual assistants advanced features such as smart home integration.
Microsoft attempted to put more resources and effort into improving Cortana to keep up with the competition. Unfortunately, despite a ‘bot-ification’ of Skype, as well as an app designed to provide users with personalised news, sports scores, and other information, the assistant still failed to gain much traction. And all the while, Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant continued to dominate the market, leaving Cortana in the dust.
The shutdown of Cortana also points to a larger trend in the tech industry; virtual assistants are becoming an increasingly crowded and competitive field. With all the major tech companies fighting for a piece of the action, Microsoft has decided to pull the plug and move on to other AI projects.
It’s a sad goodbye for a virtual assistant that promised to revolutionise virtual assistant technology but never quite lived up to expectations. But as Microsoft moves on to develop further AI technologies, here’s hoping that Cortana will live on in the hearts of its loyal fans for years to come.
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