Microsoft Corp. today announced plans to roll out a major update to Cortana that will replace the voice assistant’s consumer-oriented features with email, calendar and productivity capabilities aimed at the enterprise.

The new Cortana will arrive on Windows 10 this spring. The assistant, which is currently integrated into the Windows 10 taskbar, is being spun out into a standalone app that will provide a chat interface for typing in questions. Users will also have the option to interact with Cortana via voice commands as before.

One of the flagship features in the update is a calendar integration that enables the new Cortana to provide information on upcoming meetings and set remainders. The assistant is also gaining the ability to surface emails from a user’s inbox, send new messages, find contacts, retrieve files and write down notes in the Microsoft To Do app. 

Microsoft didn’t specify whether Cortana will only work with its own services after the update or support competing productivity suites such as G Suite as well. However, Cortana Corporate Vice President Andrew Shuman did divulge in the announcement that accessing the service will require logging in with a Microsoft work or school account. This would suggest that the company is redesigning the assistant mainly with Office 365 users in mind.

The new features will be rolled out in place of several current, consumer-oriented capabilities that are due to be phased out as part of the update. 

“Some consumer skills including music, connected home and third-party skills will no longer be available in the updated Cortana experience in Windows 10,” Microsoft’s Shuman wrote. “We’ll also be turning off the Cortana services in the Microsoft Launcher on Android by the end of April.”

Microsoft’s decision to turn Cortana into a more business-focused service comes as Amazon.com Inc.’s Alexa and Google LLC’s Google Assistants continue to solidify their leadership position in the consumer side of the market. At the same time, the two companies are trying to bring their assistants into the enterprise as well. Amazon offers a growing array of Alexa features for businesses, while Google Assistant provides integrations with G Suite to help workers with tasks such as calendar management.

Photo: Microsoft