Microsoft is bringing multi-user voice recognition to Cortana

While many like to say Cortana is dead, the reality of the situation is that Cortana is far from dead. Microsoft has lots of plans for Cortana internally, most of which involve repositioning Cortana as a productivity assistant focused on helping you work better across devices. Of course, being a voice assistant will continue to stick around too, with improvements upcoming in that area in addition to all the other plans for Cortana.

Today, hints at a new voice feature for Cortana has made an appearance in Windows 10. Some people who have an Xbox or Harman Kardon Invoke setup on their account are now seeing an option to train Cortana for use with multiple people, allowing more than one person to see their content and data just by using their voice.

The option to setup the feature isn't working for everyone just yet, but now that the option is showing up publicly, it shouldn't be long before it does start working for all. According to the features description, users can train Cortana to recognize their own voice, before adding five more people into the mix for a total of six individual people that Cortana can recognize.

Microsoft has been testing multi-user support for sometime internally, and it appears the public will be able take advantage of said new feature very soon. Microsoft originally envisioned Cortana's multi-user features with its Home Hub plans back in 2016, and over the last couple of years we've seen bits and pieces of Home Hub show up throughout Microsoft's many products and services.

Will you be taking advantage of Cortana's upcoming multi-user support? Let us know in the comments.

Thanks for the tip, Jonathan!

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 and Threads