Microsoft’s digital assistant first released in 2014 was Cortana. It debuted on Windows Phone 8.1, giving users voice-controlled help with searches, reminders, appointments, directions, weather, and other everyday tasks.
Cortana’s development began inside Microsoft’s speech-products group in 2009. Its designers interviewed human personal assistants and used those conversations to shape features such as Cortana’s Notebook, which stored information about a user’s interests and preferences. Microsoft first demonstrated the assistant at its Build developer conference in April 2014.
The name came from Cortana, the artificial-intelligence character in Microsoft’s Halo video-game series. Halo voice actor Jen Taylor also supplied the U.S. English voice for the assistant. The name was originally intended as a codename, but strong user support helped make it official.
Cortana later appeared on Windows 10, Xbox, iOS, Android, and selected devices. It is often confused with Siri, Alexa, or Bixby, but those are assistants created by Apple, Amazon, and Samsung respectively. Microsoft discontinued Cortana as a standalone assistant and shifted users toward newer tools, including Copilot.