Microsoft Cortana

Original intent · 初衷

This entry records what Microsoft retired and when. The support article that documents the shutdown describes Cortana only as 'voice assistance' across Windows and Microsoft 365 surfaces; it does not restate what the assistant was originally meant to be when it launched in 2014, and this entry does not reconstruct that from memory.

Timeline · 时间线

1. 2014-04 · month-level

   Microsoft introduces Cortana alongside Windows Phone 8.1, presenting it as the company's voice-driven personal assistant.

   [cortana-2014-introduction]
2. 2023-03 · month-level

   The standalone Cortana app in Windows is retired.

   [cortana-end-of-support]
3. 2023-09 · month-level

   Cortana is retired in Teams mobile, Teams display, Teams Rooms, Outlook mobile and Microsoft 365 mobile.

   [cortana-end-of-support]
4. 2024-06 · month-level

   The voice search and Play My Emails features in Outlook mobile are retired, the last items on Microsoft's list.

   [cortana-end-of-support]

Dates are shown at the precision the sources provide; nothing is rounded up to a full date.

What happened · 后来发生了什么

Microsoft removed Cortana from one surface after another. The standalone Windows app was retired in spring 2023; Teams mobile, Teams display, Teams Rooms, Outlook mobile and Microsoft 365 mobile followed in autumn 2023; the last features named, voice search and Play My Emails in Outlook mobile, were retired in June 2024. In place of the assistant, the same article offers voice access in Windows 11 — which works offline and controls the PC by voice — and Copilot for assistance with tasks, calendar and email.

Why it stopped · 停止原因

Curator's reading · 策展人分析

Facts cite a source. Author statements are the makers' own words. Curator analysis and hypotheses are marked as interpretation.

What remains · 留下了什么

No leftover artifact is recorded for this entry: no public repository, demo or write-up we could verify.

What the makers learned · 制作者总结

Cortana is in this archive as a staged retirement rather than a single shutdown: a general-purpose assistant can be dismantled surface by surface, and the support documentation is the surviving record of the order in which it happened. The case also shows how assistant work was re-allocated rather than abandoned — voice input continued as an operating-system accessibility feature and conversational assistance continued under a new product name — which is a different ending from a product that simply disappears.

If someone tried again · 重做问题

Cortana was a general-purpose assistant spread across Windows, mobile and Microsoft 365, and it was retired piece by piece. Would an assistant scoped to a specific job — one surface, one task — have been easier to keep alive and to measure, or was the spread itself the thing that made it hard to justify?

Sources and verification · 来源与核验

Status evidence

[cortana-end-of-support]

Added

2026-09-13

Entry updated

2026-09-13

Last verified

2026-09-13

Project period

2014-04 → 2024-06