In an unlikely turn of events, two of the biggest AI Assistants currently available may be teaming up in the future for a collaboration. Amazon and Cortana may be integrating their virtual assistants into one device.
Amazon and Microsoft are coming together to unite both their virtual assistants. Users will be able to ask Cortana to open Alexa and vice versa when interacting with their smart speakers. This will allow for users to tap into the unique offerings of each of the platforms. While Cortana is helpful and integrated with the Office Suite, Alexa will be helpful for everyday tasks and information such booking meetings, events checking mails and other tasks. While Microsoft will be releasing its own Cortana-based speakers later this year, the integration of Alexa will give it access to Alexa’s many skills as well. Both Satya Nadella and Jeff Bezos agree that the two platforms complement each other in terms of offerings and value to the end consumer.
Microsoft will be pushing its Cortana AI into smart speakers, like the Harman Kardon speaker that will be launching soon, along with thermostats, cars and other such devices. With this kind of a partnership, users will be getting the value of two companies for one, and could signal the start of numerous other partnerships with other companies such as Google. Jeff Bezos has already opened the conversation for integration with Google and Apple as well, but it may take a little more time to see if they would want to collaborate with Amazon. More interestingly, further updates to Windows 10 will also allow users to access Alexa from their Cortana-based Windows 10 PCs. They should start rolling out sometime by the end of the year. In the future, the shift might be made to iOS and Android devices as well.
The initial integration of the two platforms may be buggy as the user will have to start one Assistant in order to use the other and so on. Bezos did seem confident that further updates will automatically delegate tasks to the assistant that has more of an affinity to complete them. The original idea began in May last year where the two tech giants met. With this kind of offering now in the mix, there could not be a better time to team up, as Apple’s own speaker will be making its debut soon and the competition will need to join forces if it will be able to combat the might of the big Apple.