Thread

Microsoft abandons personal AI chatbot race with Copilot reboot

157 points · 154 comments · sbulaev

2OEH8eoCRo0 · 1790351265 · focus · HN ↗
Still can't believe they ditched the Cortana name.
1. rm_-rf_slash · 1790351445 · focus · HN ↗
  Nah it makes sense. They know their AI is second rate at best. Cortana implies 26th century excellence. If the reality is a step back (and we all know it’s several), then “haha Cortana dumb” memes would sweep the internet. They would have to rebrand anyway. If anything it was smart to rip off the band aid early.
  1. VCFundedGenYer · 1790352296 · focus · HN ↗
    No, it doesn't make sense. Cortana was a fantastic name for an assistant, and synergistic with Halo at the time.
    The low quality of the voice assistant was unfortunate, but the naming was perfect.
    Kirby64 · 1790353742 · focus · HN ↗
    The low quality of the voice assistant meant they doomed the Cortana name. It got associated with garbage voice assistance, so they had to rebrand.
    If there had been consumer good will for voice assistant performance before poisoning the name, it might have survived... but when you first product in that realm is garbage and it lingers for a long time, you're dooming the name.
    Also, synergy with Halo is meaningless to Microsoft. Most folks do not care or even know about Halo.
    2OEH8eoCRo0 · 1790354150 · focus · HN ↗
    Why isn't the Siri name poisoned for being terrible?
    Kirby64 · 1790354573 · focus · HN ↗
    It kind of has, although I would argue that Siri is more successful than Cortana.
    If I recall correctly, the thing that made Cortana particularly frustrating and worthless is that it did all searches using Bing, and opened any websites using Edge, regardless of your default settings. You got forced to use all the Microsoft version of every tool, even if you didn't want to.

Open on Hacker News to reply ↗

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.