Microsoft Continues Shutting Down Cortana

Microsoft is shutting down its digital assistant app, Cortana, for Windows 11 with an update that disables it.

This move comes three years after the tech giant ended Cortana for iOS and Android devices, The Verge reported Friday (Aug. 11).

Microsoft also plans to end support for the digital assistant in Teams mobile, Microsoft Teams Display, and Microsoft Teams Rooms in the fall, according to the report. Cortana will continue to be available in Outlook mobile.

Despite Microsoft’s initial attempt to integrate the digital assistant into everyday activities, Cortana struggled to compete with rivals like Alexa or the Google Assistant, the report said.

This fall, Microsoft is expected to launch Windows Copilot, a new sidebar for Windows 11 powered by Bing Chat and perform tasks like controlling Windows settings and answering questions, per the report.

On a webpage announcing the end of support for Cortana, Microsoft suggested that users turn to voice access in Windows 11, the new artificial intelligence (AI)-powered Bing, Microsoft 365 Copilot and Windows Copilot.

“We understand this may affect the way you work,” the company said of the end of support for Cortana, “but there are new and exciting ways you can get help with your tasks, calendar, email and more.”

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said as long ago as early 2019 that Cortana had fallen behind its rivals and that the company no longer viewed the digital assistant as a direct competitor to Alexa or Google Assistant.

Instead of going after the smart speaker market, Nadella said at the time that Cortana would aim to be more of an app or service that functions across multiple platforms.

“Cortana needs to be that skill for anybody who’s a Microsoft 365 subscriber,” Nadella told journalists in January 2019. “You should be able to use it on Google Assistant, you should be able to use it on Alexa, just like how you use our apps on Android and iOS, so that’s at least how we want to think about where it’ll go.”

By later that year, in August 2019, Microsoft was reshaping the role of Cortana, removing it as an integrated part of Windows 10 and making it into a separate app. Microsoft had started repositioning Cortana in 2018 after it fell behind the digital assistants that had been its competitors.