- Amazon and Microsoft have teamed up
and now Cortana and Alexa can talk to each other.
So how does it work?
Today we'll give you a quick tour.
Stay tuned.
(energetic music)
Alright, before we get started,
a few notes you guys should take.
This is only U.S.-only.
Of course, you knew that,
but it will eventually go out to other regions.
It's also only in preview, so keep in mind,
this is a very early stage.
What they're doing now is collecting data from users
who are gonna use this feature and improve it from there.
There'll also be other features coming online
over the coming months and years,
so although it can't do a ton of stuff right now,
we'll get more of that later on,
including playlists and music.
Alright, let's first begin with Amazon's end here.
So this is the Echo Shell,
which actually is a really nice device, by the way.
Let's take a look at what it can do.
Hey, Alexa.
Open Cortana.
- [Cortana] Cortana here.
How can I help?
- [Daniel] What is my next appointment?
- [Cortana] Okay, coming up next at 5:30 p.m.,
beer party with Panos Panai to celebrate Andromeda.
What can I do for you?
- [Daniel] What can you do?
- [Cortana] I can do many things,
like help with lists and places.
You can say something like,
where is the Empire State Building?
What can I do for you?
- [Daniel] So as you can see there,
Cortana just stays on the screen.
I was actually surprised there's sort of an animation here.
Now I give this animation a C.
It's not very impressive, but it is a neat placeholder
and it can obviously do a lot here with Amazon's end.
I hope to see Cortana improve over time,
but it's kind of neat to have a visual effect here.
This does work on other Amazon devices besides the Shell.
So if you have the Spot or just a regular Echo,
you can do it there as well.
Alright, next up is Alexa on Cortana.
So you can do this from any Windows 10 device
in the United States, which is really neat,
or if you have the Harmon/Kardon Invoke Speaker,
you can use an audio form there as well.
So you just open up Cortana and ask it to call Alexa.
(Cortana chimes)
Open Alexa.
(Cortana chimes)
(Alexa chimes)
- [Alexa] Alexa here.
(Alexa chimes)
- [Daniel] What can you do?
(Alexa chimes)
- [Alexa] Through Cortana, I can create a list,
look up a topic, control your smart home,
and check the status of your Amazon orders.
I'm still working on things like playing music,
timers and alarms.
I'm also working on intergalactic space travel,
but that goal is a little further out.
What else can I help you with?
(Alexa chimes)
- Now one of the neat things that Alexa can actually do
is access all those features and skills that are available,
including over 20,000.
Now they don't all work, as you heard.
Some things like music services
and long form audio don't yet work,
but you can do some pretty cool stuff,
including now order Domino's Pizza.
You can also access things like your Ecobee
or smart home features, which is gonna be really impressive.
Now Cortana actually does a lot of this as well,
so I can do Ecobee through Cortana
or I can do it through Alexa,
and that's what's really neat here
is you can choose what you want to do,
but if you do use a specific skill
that's only available through Alexa,
well, you can now do that through Cortana on your PC.
It's a little bit cumbersome, but at the same time,
this is how all skills work even on Alexa.
You tell it open up
and then you tell it to open up another skill
and it takes you through the process.
So this should be familiar territory
for anyone who uses Alexa already.
Alright, so there's a quick look
at the Alexa/Cortana integration.
Like I said, it's only in preview.
Now if you use Cortana on Windows 10,
you're going to get really a big benefit here.
There's a lot of stuff you can now do with Amazon
and that's only going to improve
over the coming months and years
as they roll out more skills and features,
including accessing things like playing music
and long form audio,
but we'll have to wait and see how it improves.
We'll definitely follow this story,
so leave me a comment below and tell me what you think.
I think it's really great that these companies
are cooperating together for once.
I'd like to see more of it. But if you liked this video,
give us a thumbs up and don't forget to subscribe.
Thanks for watching.
Take care, everyone.