It"s been almost a year since Microsoft and Amazon announced that their virtual assistants will be able to work with each other. Microsoft showed off the new functionality at its Build 2018 developer conference, and now, it"s finally live.
Microsoft says that no one relies on a single person for all of their needs, and you wouldn"t rely on one digital assistant either. For example, you might want to use Alexa to order groceries, but you might want to use Cortana to find out something that"s on your calendar. You also might want to use Alexa for its tens of thousands of skills, or Cortana for its hundreds of skills.
While anyone can use it and you don"t even have to opt in, this is still considered to be in the preview phase. That means that some features are still missing, such as the ability to stream music or set alarms. Obviously, more features will be added over time, so if you"re upset that you can"t play your Amazon Prime Music on your Harman Kardon Invoke yet, just be patient.
To get started, it"s as simple as you"d imagine. You can either tell Cortana to "open Alexa" or tell Alexa to "open Cortana". After that, you"ll be given instructions to log into your Amazon or Microsoft account, respectively.
It only works on Echo devices, the Harman Kardon Invoke, and Windows 10 PCs. Microsoft has confirmed to Neowin that it does intend to bring this feature to the rest of the Cortana lineup, such as the Xbox One family of consoles, mobile applications, and so on.