But Mr. Bezos and Mr. Nadella are concerned that keeping assistants from working together could hold them back. “I want them to have access to as many of those A.I.s as possible.” Mr. Bezos said. As an example, Mr. Bezos cited Cortana's superior integration with Outlook, the popular calendar and email application that is part of the Microsoft Office suite of software. Because Microsoft controls both products, Outlook is integrated more deeply with Cortana than with other voice assistants. In a phone interview, Mr. Nadella compared digital assistants like Cortana and Alexa to competing web browsers that provide access to the same pools of online information.

Source: New York Times August 30, 2017 06:56 UTC