Cortana is Being Updated to Help With Your Schedule

So if you’re the kind of person who’s so busy with work you forget to buy the cinema tickets to go on that date with your S.O. then Cortana can now step in and help to save your marriage by digitally reminding you there’s more to life than answering work emails.

Microsoft says these updates represent “just the start” of Cortana’s calendar management capabilities.

This update to Cortana allows her to be more proactive in picking up phrases like that in your email and ask you about setting a reminder for the commitment. It enables Cortana to detect emails where users have promised to do something, for example, an email where the user promises their boss that they’ll set up a meeting in the coming week. Now, Microsoft is taking things a stage further by serving up reminders when you commit to do something in an email.

Have you ever made a commitment to accomplish a certain task in an email reply? Microsoft Research (MSR) was pursuing an intriguing and powerful idea around this challenge-automatically recognizing when people make commitments to one another in email messages and providing reminders. “I will get back to you by 5 pm”. The virtual assistant will now be able to alert you to a meeting outside of your usual productive hours, so that it can be rescheduled. It will, for instance, let you know if a meeting falls within your normal commute time, so you can take action to reschedule. The assistant’s newest features, announced today on the Windows blog by Group Program Manager Marcus Ash, will make Cortana even more essential as your personal organizer.

According to Microsoft these new features, plus the ones that have been shipped previously, are just starting to scratch the surface of how Cortana can help. The same for last minute meetings – say it’s 8pm and your boss has sent you an urgent meeting request for 7am the next day – Cortana will alert you that there’s a meeting that may need your attention, so you can adjust your alarm and morning routine accordingly and stay on top of your day.