Amazon’s and Microsoft’s respective digital assistants are hooking up.
Alexa and Cortana will be going to the dance together.
On Wednesday, Amazon and Microsoft announced a first-of-its kind romance between the one-time rival digital assistants that will begin in earnest later this year.
Owners of Amazon’s popular Alexa-driven Echo speakers will be able to say, “Alexa, open Cortana.” Folks with Windows 10 devices will be able to similarly ask Cortana to open Alexa.
The tech companies are trying to leverage each of the digital assistants’ respective strengths. For example, an Alexa customer might ask Cortana to update his or her calendar inside Microsoft Office or to read aloud an email. Cortana users in turn can summon Alexa to shop inside Amazon, control smart home devices and otherwise tap into an Alexa “skills” set that numbers more than 20,000.
In a press release issued by Amazon, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that “ensuring Cortana is available for our customers everywhere and across any device is a key priority for us. Bringing Cortana’s knowledge, Office 365 integration, commitments, and reminders to Alexa is a great step toward that goal.”
His counterpart at Amazon Jeff Bezos said, that “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. 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.”
Just how deep the integration turns out to be remains to be seen. For now, the other major digital assistants, Apple’s Siri and the Google Assistant will remain independent of Alexa, Cortana and each other.
Meanwhile, Samsung has gotten off to its slow star with its own new digital assistant Bixby.
All the companies have designs on expanding their voice with such assistants well beyond speakers and computers into all sort of household appliances and gadgets, from washing machines to thermostats.
For example, at the IFA conference in Berlin, Germany, this week, Google announced not only new speakers with a baked in Google Assistant, but a washers through LG Electronics. You’ll be able to use your voice to ask, «OK, Google, «Are my clothes clean?»
Email: ebaig@usatoday.com; Follow USA TODAY Personal Tech Columnist @edbaig on Twitter.
