Microsoft is bringing Cortana to Android and iOS

So it should come as no great surprise to hear that Microsoft is indeed planning to bring Cortana to rival operating systems, as Reuters reports. While Cortana will remain a tightly integrated component in Windows on PCs, phones and other devices, the company is planning to making the assistant available as a standalone app on Android and iOS.
 
The effort to extend Cortana's reach across multiple platforms is being developed with knowledge from 'Project Einstein', a Microsoft research project focusing on artificial intelligence. More than simply bringing access to its assistant to other app stores, Microsoft has been working on a 'more advanced' version of Cortana as part of its cross-platform efforts, using the AI research from Einstein.
 
Eric Horvitz, managing director of Microsoft Research, and part of the Einstein team said: "This kind of technology, which can read and understand email, will play a central role in the next roll out of Cortana, which we are working on now for the fall time frame."
 
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