Amazon's Alexa digital assistant will soon be integrated into Windows 10 computers. This move was part of an ongoing business agreement between Microsoft and Amazon.
A wide range of Windows 10 computers from world-famous brands including HP, Levono, and Acer are expected to have Amazon's Alexa preinstalled later this year. This does not mean that Microsoft will pull out their artificial intelligence (AI) on those devices, however. Microsoft's Cortana will still be present on the computers and will co-exist with Alexa.
Alexa will be most especially prominent on computers that have excellent voice recognition capabilities. One notable example is HP's new Pavilion Wave line of PCs.
Acer and ASUS also announced computers that will have Alexa integration. For Acer, some of the Aspire, Spin, Switch, and Swift line of notebooks plus the Aspire all-in-one PCs will have Amazon's AI. Likewise, ASUS' ZenBook and VivoBook laptops will have the AI installed.
The new Alexa integration will use special software that will be released in later this year. The new software will enable users to give commands to Windows 10 devices, like they would on an Amazon Echo smart speaker via Alexa.
Microsoft and Amazon have long been in talks of a partnership, saying that both their digital assistants Cortana and Alexa will be existing cross-platform.
However, both companies have missed their target dates for integration. As of January 2018, the companies have yet to create actual cross-platform integration of their respective AI.
This recent move by Amazon integrating Alexa into new Windows 10 devices is a different one from the planned partnership with Microsoft.
Amazon's Alexa is one of the more widespread digital assistants, integrated into most modern electronic devices. It enables user to finish tasks using voice commands. Alexa is a main feature of Amazon's line of smart speakers, Amazon Echo.
