Cortana is now 2 years old

Microsoft’s digital assistant has just turned 2 years old. The Halo-inspired personality was first demonstrated at BUILD 2014 and first came to Windows Phone 8.1, before making the jump first to Windows 10, and eventually to both iOS and Android.

While before she was merely about Bing searches and voice control, Cortana has been gaining an increasing role in supervising and integrating Microsoft’s cross-platform features, with Cortana for example mediating the ability to send text messages from your PC or reading notifications from Android phones on your Windows 10 PC.

At BUILD 2016 Microsoft announced a number of new features:

• Microsoft is releasing a new Cortana Collection in the Windows Store to make it easy for consumers to find great apps with Cortana.
•  Cortana will now proactively make suggestions for you through-out your day, like offering to buy you lunch or arrange transportation.
• Cortana will be available above the lock screen, giving you quicker access to your personal assistant for common tasks across all types of devices without unlocking your PC.
• Since Cortana works across your devices – you can complete certain notification-based tasks on your Windows or Android phone, such as receiving and sending text messages, on your PC.

With Microsoft hewing heavily into the Bot direction we can expect her to become only smarter and more prevalent as Microsoft’s user interface of choice.

Cortana is currently available in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese. Are any of our readers regular users? Let us know below.