Cortana is one of Windows 10‘s best features, and Microsoft has been continuously updating the voice assistant to make it more practical for everyday use. Today the company is adding another set of features to make itmore like a real personal assistant: automated task reminders.
For example, let’s say you emailed a co-worker promising you’d finish an assignment by a certain date – but then totally forgot about it. Cortana will now be able to scan your email and automatically recognize commitments you’ve made, and prompts you to set a reminder to help you get it done.
Meanwhile, Cortana’s also getting smarter about helping you manage your calendar; the assistant can now detect when you have meetings scheduled at unusual hours. For instance, if someone asks you to meet after normal working hours, Cortana can notify you of the odd time so you can reschedule it to be more convenient.
Likewise, if your boss schedules a last-minute meeting for 7am, Cortana will alert you so that you can adjust your alarm time and actually be ready on time.
It’s not clear whether the emails are scanned locally or over the cloud, but we’ve contacted Microsoft for more information and will update this post when we hear back.
Microsoft says the reminder capabilities are ‘just the start’ of more features to come for the voice assistant. The updates are currently only available to Windows Insiders in the US and UK, but we imagine it will roll out to more users within a few months.
➤ Cortana Gets Better at Helping You Manage Your Busy Schedule [Windows Blog]
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