Microsoft’s Cortana To Stop Working in 8 Countries by 2020

Microsoft recently announced future changes that they will apply to their virtual personal assistant program Cortana. After January 31, 2020, Cortana and it’s services will no longer be available in selected countries.

In a statement released by Microsoft, the company revealed that they will be stopping the services of Cortana in the following countries of Australia, Canada and the UK. Engadget reached out to the company for more information and Microsoft further revealed that the same decision will also apply to China, India, Mexico, German and Spain. This means that Cortana will shut down its services in a total of eight countries.

This discontinuance of the Cortana services will mean that any content and settings on Cortana within its native application on the android and iOS platforms will all be lost, as well as its functionality on the Microsoft Launcher app. After January 31, 2020, a new updated version of the Microsoft Launcher app will be released with all of Cortana’s functions and content removed.

On the other hand, Cortana will continue to work on Windows devices.

The move will remove Microsoft’s Cortana in the game of AI virtual helpers on mobile devices along with others such as Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa. Instead, they will have the functionalities of the Cortana app shift to Outlook and other productivity apps within the Microsoft 365 suite.

This is to, as Microsoft puts it, “make your personal digital assistant as helpful as possible.” There is no word yet from the company regarding any plans that they have for Cortana’s services within the US and other countries.

On the other hand, since Cortana reminders, lists and tasks are automatically synced to the Microsoft To Do app, users can keep this set of information by downloading the free app if they still don’t have one.