Microsoft has made the decision to discontinue support for Cortana on Windows, as stated in a recently published support document. The removal process of the app, which you may not have used much since its initial introduction, will commence later this year.

This announcement comes in the wake of Microsoft Build, the company's annual conference, where they unveiled their new Windows Copilot tool. Positioned below the taskbar, this tool is expected to encompass all the functionalities previously offered by Cortana. This includes tasks like adjusting settings, providing content summaries, answering queries, and more.

The decline of Cortana has been a foreseeable outcome. Initially introduced in 2014 with Windows Phone 8.1, the AI assistant extended to desktops with Windows 10 and became ubiquitous across systems and applications like Office.

Nevertheless, due to its lackluster adoption, Microsoft gradually phased out Cortana over the years. With the release of Windows 11, it lost its prominent position on the taskbar and became available solely as a standalone app. In 2020, Microsoft also retired the app on iOS and Android.

While there isn't a specific date set for the removal of Cortana from Windows, Microsoft is urging users to explore alternative resources such as Voice access in Windows 11, the new Bing, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and Windows Copilot.

Source: Indian Express