Hey Cortana, why does Microsoft make it so hard to find out what's new with you?

Microsoft's biggest problem around its Cortana digital assistant is perception. The Siri and Google Now competitor has a rich feature set, and while the focus is shifting from pure app-similar experience to a more nuanced smart-Os, there's a lot of potential.

One area that is non great for Cortana — also restricted regional availability — is knowing what Cortana can and cannot do, or more specifically, if any new features have been added. Amazon has proven that this problem is solvable, without much effort.

A uncomplicated email

Microsoft has a decent web presence for Cortana . Caput to Microsoft.com/cortana, and you are directed to a folio with tips on getting organized, working across devices, details on "her" valuable skills, and more than.

Additionally, users tin discover more much for Cortana to practice by clicking the search surface area in Windows 10 or head to the Notebook. At that place you tin can find a deep link to more skills, information on the connected home, productivity, family, continued services, and lifestyle details.

All these bits are proficient and a step upwardly from where Cortana was simply 2 years ago. Much more piece of work is going into Cortana backside the scenes, especially with ex-Acommpli founder Javier Soltero taking over the development of the assistant in March.

But the lowest hanging fruit is still missing: a simple email or message near new enhancements.

While opting into more emails is not e'er wanted, Amazon's regular Alexa updates are very useful. A uncomplicated message titled "What's new with Alexa?" hits users' inboxes regularly, and with it comes a list of things to try and some other surface area with "nearly requested." None of this is groundbreaking or amazing. Simply a simple email that tells users what new commands they can employ with Cortana, what new skills take been added, some examples of popular commands for Cortana, and even some new features they are working on would be extremely benign.

Amazon'southward newsletter about Alexa is uncomplicated and brilliant.

For PC users, some of this may be of less interest, but for those who accept the Harman Kardon Invoke speaker (and hereafter Cortana-continued smart home gear), such updates are essential. I've been told that Microsoft does similar for those in the Cortana beta testing group. Occasional emails inform them that a new characteristic like "remove lists or listing items using voice" is now available with a bunch of example commands ("Cortana, add together New York to my travel list") give concrete use cases for users to attempt.

Microsoft could just equally easily put in a 'What'south new' surface area nether Cortana'southward Notebook. My hunch is such a log may non be updated all that often, but why not let users see a running changelog of new features?

Discovery is hard with digital assistants

This all goes back to discovery with digital assistants – any and all of them. Amazon boasts thousands of skills, but learning what is available, and the keywords needed to activate them, is no easy chore.

The discovery problem with assistants will slowly go away as artificial intelligence (AI) improves over the coming years, but for now, this semi-sophisticated voice activation and trigger arrangement is more brute force than nuance.

Considering these systems aren't very intelligent, Microsoft is going to take to exercise a lot of spoon feeding to help users brand the most of Cortana. By providing a uncomplicated, occasional email listing new skills, current popular features users are leveraging, and maybe even what's coming adjacent, people may feel less business over the hereafter of Microsoft'due south assistant. And it would be a subtle reminder to endeavour information technology out.

Pushing aside intrusive emails that some may see as spam, Microsoft could proceed a changelog or what's-new list in Cortana. Imagine just asking what Cortana "Hey Cortana, what's new for you?" or "Hey Cortana, what can yous do now?".

Most of this seems like basic software evolution and communication 101, but Microsoft sometimes needs a kick. Well, hither's a punt, Microsoft.

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Source: https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-needs-whats-new-page-cortana

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