It was in August of 2017 that Microsoft and Amazon announced a partnership that would allow the two digital assistants to have a playdate. Both companies said the cross-talk feature would be enabled by the end of 2017 but as we all know, that didn’t happen.
When I pinged Microsoft and Amazon about the missed deadline earlier this year, both companies said the functionality would be enabled “soon” but soon apparently that means more than two months time. But, for those looking hope on the horizon, the functionality will eventually arrive as the company stated today that they are continuing to test the feature.
Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday — and get free copies of Paul Thurrott's Windows 11 and Windows 10 Field Guides (normally $9.99) as a special welcome gift!
"*" indicates required fields
On the Windows Insider podcast this afternoon, the team said, at the 1h 5min mark, that the internally, employees are now testing the feature via self-hosting but we don’t have any update on a release timeline. While we would love to know when this functionality will be enabled, considering both companies have been quiet about the feature, I was worried that it may have quietly been killed; at least we now know that it is still on the agenda.
There were a few other announcements during the podcast but one notable item is that “Hey Cortana” will soon be shortened to simply Cortana, and if you have an Invoke, it can now read messages from Outlook on Windows 10.
Considering that Cortana has a new VP, I’d expect the see the expansion of the digital AI to become more aggressive. That being said, this mentality should have been adopted from the start as Microsoft now finds itself behind Amazon and Google in the personal digital assistant race.
Bats
<p>I wonder if this is going to work like Mercedes Me and Google Home/Alexa? For those who don't know, "Mercedes Me" is sorta built into Google Home and is a "skill" for Alexa. What "Mercedes Me" does is an Digital Assistant inside the digital assistant, that can start my car, lock the doors, and other things. I haven't used it much for Alexa, but for Google Home, I would say "Hey Google, Let me speak to Mercedes Me." The Google Assistant would say Ok, and then another voice comes on and introduces herself as Mercedes Me and offers to <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">start my car, lock the doors, and do other things. </span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">I wonder if this Cortana integration with Alexa is like Mercedes Me with Google Home/Assistant. If it is, it's not exactly…..fun.</span></p>
seapea
<p>for the Invoke I don't have to say "hey Cortana" now, just say "Cortana". Don't thing i ever had to say "hey" with it.</p>