Cortana, the AI- based digital voice assistant from Microsoft, is no longer available on both Android and iOS. The company had earlier revealed plans in July, 2020 to remove the standalone Cortana app from these platforms, and along with it, they have also ended support for third-party Cortana skills.
Just as Apple’s digital assistant is Siri and Amazon’s digital assistant is Alexa, Microsoft offered Cortana. While Cortana is quite well integrated into the Windows desktop OS, the smartphone world is quite different. Microsoft did not find much success with the Cortana app, and as a result of not gaining a big enough user base, Microsoft has decided to end the app.
While the app will no longer be available, reminders and lists that were previously saved on the app will be available through Cortana on Windows. Alternatively, Cortana reminders, lists, and tasks will be synced to the Microsoft To Do app, which is still available for download on Android and iOS.
In the future, Microsoft will be focusing on improving their AI offerings in their Microsoft 365 apps. They have already made a variety of changes such as integrating Cortana in the Teams app, personalized, actionable briefs in Outlook for Exchange users, etc.