[German]Microsoft had announced for quite some time that it would retire the voice assistant Cortana in Windows and rely on AI (CoPilot) instead. Now, the farewell of Cortana is coming faster than expected. Windows Insiders testing the latest builds of Windows 11 have the option to uninstall Cortana, and Microsoft has confirmed that the farewell will begin as early as August 2023.
End of Cortana support already announced
My knowledge was that support for the (annoying) voice assistant Cortana, which came someone was using, would be discontinued towards the end of 2023. I had picked this up on June 3, 2023 in the post Microsoft ends Cortana support "in late 2023" in Windows – AI is the new aim. Basis was the announcement by Microsoft that:
- Cortana will no longer be supported as a standalone app in Windows from the end of 2023.
- However, users in Windows and Edge will still be able to access productivity features, but they will now be provided via advanced AI features (CoPilot).
It had been hinted for some time that Microsoft would be phasing out Cortana. See also the Microsoft support article End of support for Cortana in Windows for more details.
Windows 11 Insiders can deselect Cortana
Raphael had already pointed me to this post from Windows Central at the end of last week (thanks for that, but I had already seen it on the web). The post deals with the new features that are rolled out by the Windows 11 Insider Build 25921. In the article you can also find the information that Microsoft has added an option to uninstall Cortana in this Windows 11 Insider Build 25921, which was distributed in the Canary Channel.
The Microsoft support article End of support for Cortana in Windows also contains the information that the support for Cortana will end. It says that Cortana will no longer be supported as a standalone app in Windows as of August 2023. However, users can use the aforementioned AI functions (CoPilot) to get help with tasks, the calendar, and emails.
