When we first met Cortana, she was a sidekick to everyone’s favorite video game hero, Masterchief, in the Xbox game series Halo. The game series had a phenomenal following, so it seemed a masterful move for Microsoft to bring her to Windows Desktops everywhere as our friendly, and famous, smart assistant.
But things have not progressed well for our digital heroine since her introduction in 2015, and what should have been a slam dunk failed to take hold. Microsoft has published an End of Support Release for Cortana, so we can expect her time to be fleeting at best.
But all is not lost with a desktop AI on the Windows platform. Microsoft recently introduced Copilot at their Build event, so expect to see that continue to expand its presence in the desktop world. But for Cortana, well, she will probably stick with her video gaming roots and hopefully continue to help save the world yet one more time. Which is where I think she works best, so this is actually a happy ending.
