Microsoft Kills Cortana in Windows

Continuing the years-long winddown of its personal digital assistant, Microsoft quietly revealed that it will stop supporting Cortana in Windows 10 and 11 in late 2023.

“We are making some changes to Windows that will impact users of the Cortana app,” a Microsoft support document explains. “Starting in late 2023, we will no longer support Cortana in Windows as a standalone app. However, you can still access powerful productivity features in Windows and Edge, which have increased AI capabilities. This means you can still get help with your tasks, calendar, and email, but in new and exciting ways. This change only impacts Cortana in Windows, and your productivity assistant, Cortana, will continue to be available in Outlook mobile, Teams mobile, Microsoft Teams display, and Microsoft Teams rooms.”

Cortana has been on the way out for years.

In 2019, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that Cortana would never be competitive with Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa and he recast the technology as a backend service. Then, in July 2020, Microsoft announced that it would end support for the Cortana app on Android and iPhone and it followed through with that promise in March 2021. And, in June 2021, Microsoft announced Windows 11 and revealed that Cortana was being deprecated in the new system. Unlike with Windows 10, Cortana would no longer yell at users installing the OS, and the Cortana app would not be pinned to the Taskbar.

So no surprises here, really. And Microsoft Copilot branding is, of course, a better choice for the coming AI wave in Windows and elsewhere.