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Microsoft Windows AI

Microsoft Is Finally Killing Cortana On Windows 22

In a support document today, Microsoft announced its ending support for Cortana on Windows in late 2023. "Cortana continues to live on in Outlook mobile, Teams mobile, Teams display, and Teams rooms," notes XDA Developers. From the report: In the support document announcing the end of the Cortana era, Microsoft notes that you'll still be able to access AI experiences in Windows 11, and calls out Windows Copilot by name. Alongside that, there's the new Bing, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and voice access in Windows, the last of which lets you control your PC with your voice.

The writing has been on the wall for Cortana for some time now. It was first introduced as a virtual assistant for Windows Phone 8.1, back in 2014, competing with the likes of Apple's Siri. In 2015, it launched on the desktop with Windows 10, and then it started to feel like Microsoft was putting Cortana everywhere. It started showing up in apps like Office and such, similar to what we're seeing with Copilot now. There were third-party Cortana devices too, like the Harman Kardon Invoke smart speaker and the Johnson Controls Glas thermostat, both of which are no longer supported.

Soon after it started becoming apparent that Cortana wouldn't compete with Amazon Alexa, Microsoft started to roll back. Cortana was stripped out of Windows, becoming a standalone app rather than something you found in the taskbar. For a couple of years now, it's just kind of lived as an app on Windows 11, with no news arriving about any kinds of new features. Now is the era of Bing Chat and Copilot.
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Microsoft Is Finally Killing Cortana On Windows

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  • And all the embedded spywares?
    • Now with more AI.
    • by theshowmecanuck ( 703852 ) on Friday June 02, 2023 @06:35PM (#63571987) Journal

      I'm waiting for the adverts in the task bar in Windows 11!

      • Waiting for a complete advertising platform to soon happen when we will go to full screen ad popups and intermediate shortcut adds to software (ie click on your desktop shortcut for browser|word|excel|custom|photoshop|etc) and an ad will popup fron and centre which you have to dismiss to allow your program to load)

    • by antdude ( 79039 )

      And the OS? :P

  • Bring back Clippy (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by HoleShot ( 1884318 )

    as an AI chat bot. Complete with all the animation.

  • by JustAnotherOldGuy ( 4145623 ) on Friday June 02, 2023 @08:09PM (#63572119) Journal

    Microsoft Is Finally Killing Cortana On Windows

    ...and nothing of value was lost.

    • Damn, beat me to it

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The timing is very odd, given how much they are investing in ChatGPT and Ai integration for Windows. Cortana would be the natural front end for that.

      I guess they are planning to do the usual tech company thing of killing something that never became popular, and releasing something very similar in the hope that the new slightly different one succeeds.

  • But when will Microsoft stop killing Windows?
  • by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Friday June 02, 2023 @10:01PM (#63572287) Homepage

    When I saw this article, I checked my taskbar, and what do you know, Cortana was indeed gone. I never noticed, because I never used it.

    Apparently, not many did.

  • by Coius ( 743781 ) on Friday June 02, 2023 @11:44PM (#63572371)

    Microsoft should just integrate Tay into everything, and sit back and watch the hilarity ensue. That's literally all Microsoft is good for now, a joke of platform, a crappy innovator (as in, they just discovered the "wheel" exists, and are actively trying to copy it and rush it to market!)

    Tay would be my next guess of what they will resurrect. But likely through a ChatGPT, meaning it can be more personal in it's racism, deny historically significant tragedies, and insult the entire user base. Either with targetted speech, or by insulting the intelligence of the few high IQ who are using Windows not as a matter of choice, but because they have to in order to do their job.

    But as bad as Clippy is, we are going to see the ChatGPT alliance become Tay 3.0 (Remember the relaunch of Tay? That was hilarious!)
    We all know Microsoft sucks out loud, but holy crap! They have brought some insanely stupid inventions to the public, and due to doubling-down, has made sure their bad ideas are known by everyone, as you will have no option to search with a AI that either does personal attacks, or will insult you entire genetic lineage. I might laugh my ass off if this becomes a Tay 3.0 Thing. It shows how badly Microsoft keeps track of it's failures, or if they ever learn anything!

  • I don't understand why anyone would use any of these spying services, but if I had to choose between devils I'd take Microsoft over Amazon. Is there some compelling reason why people have apparently chosen to expose themselves to Alexa? Was the bargain which Cortana offered inadequate in some way? I always thought of them as being basically equivalent.
  • Yes. Lets kill an almost ideal method of delivering an AI experience and replace it with a chat window. Because progress.

    Yes I know Cortana wasn't successful but the reason it wasn't is because all it really could do reliably is tell you the time and set timers, tell you the weather and give you sport scores. Any time you tried doing any heavy lifting with it it would either spaz out spewing useless garbage, or throw up its hands and say "I don't know"

    Here's a thought Microsoft. How about actually making Co

  • I had to Wiki it to find out what Cortana is (or was) [wikipedia.org]: it's a "ceremonial sword used by various people to slice their bellies open rather than use a Microsoft "virtual assistant", whatever one of those [wikipedia.org] is.

    I believe the whole lifecycle of this product fits into the period of time since I stopped using Microsoft products. In the immortal words of Sgt.Maj Shutup [wikipedia.org], "Oh dear. How Sad. What a pity. Never mind."

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