Microsoft is finally bringing Cortana to Skype

It seems like years have passed since Microsoft first announced that Cortana would be coming to Skype chats (its been only nearly two years since Build 2016), and now its finally here. After a short-lived appearance earlier this year, Microsoft is finally ready to roll-out Cortana in Skype for mobile. It’ll work very much like Google assistant does in Allo and Facebook Messenger’s M, popping up suggestions when needed, and available as a conversational partner.

Cortana can find movie dates for you, organise your day by detecting information in your chats and intelligently scheduling calendar appointments, and can be called on to inject a touch of levity into the conversation in the form of jokes. You’ll need to grant it permission first so if you’re very pro-privacy, you don’t have to let Cortana scan all your chats if you don’t want to.

It’ll be built on the new Skype, so you’ll need to be running the latest versions of Skype to participate in the fun. While users didn’t receive those well, Microsoft is also making changes going forward to implement user feedback and bring back aspects of the old Skype that were loved.

Cortana for Skype is rolling out on the iPhone and Android in the USA starting from today, Microsoft users in other parts of the world can expect to get it over the next few months.