You Can Preview Cortana and Alexa's Budding Romance Now

From an Alexa-native device, the opposite incantation-"Alexa, open Cortana"-will open Microsoft's digital assistant for you to check your calendar, manage your to-do list, or listen to some emails". After you first say the clunky phrase "Alexa, open Cortana" or "Cortana, open Alexa". From a Cortana-native device (a Windows 10 PC, an Xbox, the Harman Kardon speaker), "Hey Cortana, open Alexa" will switch you to speaking to Alexa.

"Once you open Cortana, all voice data goes to Microsoft and not Amazon, and once you open Alexa, all voice data goes to Amazon and not Microsoft", said Amazon spokeswoman Dawn Brun in a statement previous year. Many of Alexa's third-party skills will be available to Cortana users, but not all, though that's supposed to change in the future.

The Verge reports that Microsoft and Amazon have released a wider public preview of its previously teased deeper integration between the Alexa and Cortana digital assistants - available for everyone in the USA right now. With the partnership, Alexa users will be able to summon Cortana on their speaker or any other device, and Cortana users would be able to use Alexa on their device.

As Microsoft and Amazon demonstrated at the Microsoft Build conference in May, the procedure for invoking Cortana on Alexa devices (and vice versa) is rather awkward.

"Our goal is to create a seamless integration and this is our first step towards achieving that goal", a Microsoft spokesperson tells CNET.

Last August, Microsoft and Amazon made an interesting announcement.

Today, Amazon and Microsoft are officially unveiling the Alexa/Cortana integration.

This feedback will hopefully result in the inclusion of some now missing features, like music streaming and alarm clocks, as both parties intend to keep adding more over time. "And because Alexa is always getting smarter, the experience will get better the more you use it". Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said at the time the company wants "to make it possible for our customers to get the most out of their personal digital assistants - not be bound to some walled garden".