Microsoft’s flawed reasoning betrays the embarrassing reason Cortana is on its deathbed: it sucks, and no one is interested. On January 31, 2020, Microsoft will be ending support for the Cortana mobile app in the UK, Canada, Germany, China, Australia, Mexico, Spain, and India. Precisely what end of support means means is a little unclear but given how dependent the digital assistant is upon Cloud-processing, it might be best to say your goodbyes sooner rather than later.
Cortana’s absence on mobile outside of the US also poses a bit of a problem for the Surface Headphones, which rely on the Cortana app for updates and such, but Microsoft will probably have a solution ready by January. Existing notes, to-do lists, and calendar items will automatically be migrated to Microsoft’s other apps.
Despite commandeering the gigantic install base of Windows, Cortana’s become a bit of a bad joke. Even CEO Satya Nadella admitted in January that Microsoft no longer views it as a competitor to Google Assistant or Amazon's Alexa. But Microsoft isn’t wasting any time being sore losers, instead, they’ve been steadily increasing their support for Alexa by integrating it into Windows and selling Echo smart speakers in their stores.
Still, that doesn’t mean Cortana is entirely dead. Cortana will still be available in the US and Microsoft has said it will integrate the voice assistant with Office 365. Hopefully that means it’ll get a few useful new features, too.
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