Microsoft announces the Cortana Skill Kit for Enterprise

By Zac Bowden
last updated

Cortana Skills is coming to the Enterprise, allowing businesses to take advantage of Cortana for their own specific tasks.

Cortana and Microsoft logo
Cortana and Microsoft logo (Image credit: Windows Central)

At Ignite, Microsoft has today announced the Cortana Skill Kit for Enterprise, bringing customizable Cortana experiences and skills to those in the business and enterprise markets. This is the same Cortana Skills experience you know and love on PCs today, now tailored for enterprise.

Cortana Skills for Enterprise provides an end-to-end solution that allows enterprises to build custom skills and agents, and deploy them directly to their organization. Built using the Microsoft Bot Framework and "Azure Cognitive Services Language Understanding Service" (what a mouthful,) Microsoft says the use of Cortana and its skill capabilities should improve workforce productivity.

Right now, Cortana Skills for Enterprise is available by invite only, and will slowly be opened up to more companies and developers in the coming weeks and months. Microsoft has lots planned for Cortana, specially around its usefulness in the "productivity" market. Perhaps we'll hear more about Cortana over the next few weeks.

Zac Bowden
Zac Bowden
Senior Editor

Zac Bowden is a Senior Editor at Windows Central. Bringing you exclusive coverage into the world of Windows on PCs, tablets, phones, and more. Also an avid collector of rare Microsoft prototype devices! Keep in touch on Twitter: @zacbowden.

13 Comments
  • Cool, will package tracking be one of the skills?
  • Dare I even hope that Cortana will continue to exist? Dare I?
  • No, Enterprise is where features like Cortana go to die. When this feature isn't utilized they will have even more reason to kill her in 2019.
  • Who here thought Google would kill Inbox?
    Or for Sony to drop PSV and VAIO?
  • I was pissed about them dropping Inbox, but Gmail seems to have almost the same UI and features now. Seems inbox was just a beta test for Gmail. You don't see Google dropping or removing features from Assistant though. Much different than an email client.
  • Reader, Boston Dynamics and Glass.
    G+ is near dead...
  • Yeah? Some small auxiliary services that weren't being used heavily. Didn't they sell off Boston Dynamics? Again, not the same as killing their AI Assistant.
  • They have a speech recognition. AI Assistant like Cortana (and to some extend Siri) are far more advanced.
  • RIP Cortana, Microsoft never really gave you the attention and marketing you should have had, just like Windows Phone.
  • Marketing is hard when your product is garbage.
  • No. See Apple.
    And with the best products Marketing is hard. You might remember Google Wave, Windows 8 / 10 Mobile, Blackberrys, or to go farther back Betamax (vs. VHS).
  • Cortana should be more of a consumer feature. Not enterprise where it seems like Cortana is going to end up in the graveyard.
  • Why not both?