Cortana no longer works with Alexa

Way back in August 2017 Microsoft and Amazon announced that the Amazon Alexa voice assistant will soon offer a Cortana skill, allowing Echo owners to access information that is only available via Microsoft’s own voice assistant service.

Microsoft pushed back the arrival of the integration a number of times, and eventually released a public preview in August 2018.

The feature worked by using the keywords “Open Cortana” on the Alexa, which opens a portal onto the Cortana service.

It will also work via “Hey Cortana, Open Alexa” on your PC, which lets you access Alexa skills on your PC.

Now PC Mag reports that Microsoft and Amazon have quietly killed this partnership, with Microsoft saying:

“As of Sept. 18, we decided to end the Cortana on Alexa experience as it previously existed and shift our Cortana resources to focus on productivity within Microsoft 365,”

Microsoft says they notified users via “in-product notifications leading up to Sept. 18.”, but I suspect with a vanishingly small user base this never came to anyone else’s attention.

Microsoft says they have moved their focus to enterprise services, though it remains to see how widespread use is there.