Microsoft and Amazon Virtual Assistant Collaboration

Microsoft and Amazon have announced that they have enabled their respective virtual assistants to talk to one another starting this autumn.

13:10 05 September 2017

Andrew Shuman, corporate vice president of Cortana Engineering at Microsoft, said that Windows 10 users would soon be able to ask Cortana to access Alexa to order items from Amazon, among other tasks. Meanwhile, Alexa will be able to tap into Microsoft’s growing portfolio of Cortana-enriched intelligent services for Windows and Office 365.

 

“By bringing Cortana to Alexa and Alexa to Cortana, I’m excited that we’re adding more value and choice for consumers and developers alike,”

 

“Cortana users will be able to have Alexa shop on Amazon.com and manage their Amazon orders and access many of Alexa’s third-party skills by asking Cortana to open Alexa, just as Alexa users will have access to Cortana’s world knowledge and helpful productivity features such as calendar management, day at a glance and location-based reminders simply by asking Alexa to open Cortana,” continued Shuman.

 

Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos, CEO and founder of Amazon, said in a  statement. “The world is big and so multifaceted. There are going to be multiple successful intelligent agents, each with access to different sets of data and with different specialized skill areas,” said

 

“Together, their strengths will complement each other and provide customers with a richer and even more helpful experience. It’s great for Echo owners to get easy access to Cortana.”