Many of us will be aware of the fact that tech companies are moving towards Artificial Intelligence which is perceived to be the next big thing on the Internet. AI will be the driving force of revolutionary industries like mobile, transportation, logistics and even medicine. Every big tech company in silicon valley is betting tremendous efforts on making their AI assistants a lot better and smarter so they can understand the context and reply back to the user effectively. Be it Google or Amazon or Apple or even Microsoft; no one wants to leave stones unturned to stay ahead of the competition.
Cortana in Skype
Last year Microsoft announced that Cortana would be getting integrated into many of their digital products, and today they revealed that Cortana is finally coming to Skype. Integrating smart assistants to instant messaging apps is not a new thing as tech giants like Google, Facebook, Apple have already done that and are quite ahead in the race. Microsoft is also joining the bandwagon and bringing in their assistant to apps.
So how will Cortana work in chats? The answer is simple! It will work similar to other assistants. For example, when you are looking for a nice restaurant to have delicious dinner, then Cortana will pop up and suggest ynearby restaurants. The results are taken from the web.
After these, you can perform actions related to those or else continue with whatever stuff you were doing. Since Cortana is wholly integrated with Skype, you will be able to utilize all of its potentials like setting reminders, sending email, asking for weather at a particular location and many more.
When and where?
According to the official blog from Microsoft, Cortana for Skype will be currently available only in the US region and will be gradually rolling out to everyone.
It will be available for both iOS and Android users, with no word on the desktop version yet.
Digital assistants are good in one way, as they will be available for us whenever we need assistance during a conversation or in an important meeting, or at an unknown place where you cannot communicate in the regional languages. However, for a person who thinks a lot about privacy, digesting the fact that assistant will be reading all your messages to assist your efficiently could be quite tricky.
It is hoped that when the app rolls out to all, there will be an option where you can turn off the or perhaps an alternative to call it only when you require it. What are your thoughts on this? Let us know in the comments section below!
