In the battle of the virtual assistants, Microsoft’s Cortana just scored. The company today is rolling out new functionality that will allow the assistant to..
In the battle of the virtual assistants, Microsoft’s Cortana just scored. The company today is rolling out new functionality that will allow the assistant to remind you about things you haven’t explicitly told her to track. Specifically, Cortana will now be able to help you remember items you’ve promised to do in your emails, by popping up reminder suggestions.
This suggested reminders functionality was first announced a year ago, and was developed in conjunction with Microsoft’s Research division. It works thanks to machine learning, which involves having Cortana scan your emails in order to generate its timely suggestions of tasks – something it does only with users’ permission, of course.
The scans themselves are performed locally, Microsoft previously said. The reminder details are only sent to Microsoft’s servers, once a user agrees to have a reminder set.