Microsoft finally showed off what it would look like if Cortana and Alexa worked together — and also what it would sound like.
Microsoft and Amazon have been teasing the team-up since last August, when they announced their agreement to get their Voice assistants to work together by the end of the year. That didn’t happen, but it’s good to see Microsoft hasn’t completely forgotten its promise, especially considering there have been no major updates up to this point.
In order to summon the voice assistant on its non-native device, you need to ask the resident voice to open it for you.
To demonstrate, Megan Saunders, general manager of Cortana, asked an Amazon Echo, “Alexa, open Cortana” — at which point, Cortana piped up to offer her services. She then threw the demo to Tom Taylor, Senior VP of Alexa — who asked Cortana to open Alexa while on his Windows computer and used the latter to order an Uber.
Currently, the integration is still in “very limited beta,” so we might not be seeing the official team-up any time soon — at least, neither Saunders nor Taylor hinted when it would be available.
