Microsoft recently announced that is shifting the focus of Cortana from an all-in-one assistant, such as Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa to a productivity centric artificial intelligence (AI). According to a new report from Petri reveals that the company may also be planning to change the Cortana name to “Microsoft 365 Assistant,” and it’s already using the new name internally.
The Cortana name came from the of a character from the Halo game that the company owns but seeing the new direction of the assistant as a productivity tool and Microsoft 365, the name doesn’t make much sense anymore. As a result, the new Microsoft 365 assistant seems a more logical rebranding.
In addition, the company is working in some other features evolving Cortana (Microsoft 365 Assistant). According to the same report, Microsoft is working to expand the “Play My Emails” feature for Outlook with more features under the “commute” group for earbuds. And it’ll allow the assistant to play emails, read calendar, and other audible interactions with your agenda as you commute to work. The feature will even tell you when you need to pull up your phone when the message has a lot of visual content.
Also, Microsoft seem to be working to integrate its assistant into Teams, allowing it to send files or create chats on the service. It’s not clear where the assistant will be integrated, but it’s likely that Cortana will appear as a search box in the top bar of the Teams app.
Mauro Huculak is a Windows expert and the Editor-in-Chief who started Pureinfotech in 2010 as an independent online publication. He is also been a Windows Central contributor for nearly a decade. Mauro has over 12 years of experience writing comprehensive guides and creating professional videos about Windows, software, and related technologies, including Android and Linux. Before becoming a technology writer, he was an IT administrator for seven years. In total, Mauro has over 20 years of combined experience in technology. Throughout his career, he achieved different professional certifications from Microsoft (MSCA), Cisco (CCNP), VMware (VCP), and CompTIA (A+ and Network+), and he has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP for many years. You can follow him on X (Twitter), YouTube, LinkedIn and About.me.