It first launched back in 2014 as a digital assistant on the Windows Phone. But if you're a fan of Microsoft's smart assistant, Cortana, we have some bad news for you. Microsoft has announced that it has officially ditched its standalone Cortana app for Windows 11. The tech giant explained the change in a blog post this week, highlighting that it'understands this may affect the way you work.' Here's what you need to know about the change and what it means for you. Cortana first launched on the Windows Phone back in 2014, before being added as a smart assistant in Windows 10, one year later.

Apparently, the introduction of Windows Copilot signaled the end of Cortana on Microsoft's desktop OS. In a new support document first spotted by Windows Central, the tech giant has announced that it will stop supporting the standalone Cortana app for Windows in late 2023. Microsoft launched Cortana as a voice assistant for Windows mobile devices back in 2014. It was supposed to be the company's answer to Apple's Siri, and it even predates Amazon's Alexa, but it never quite achieved their level of recognition and popularity. Over the year, Microsoft scaled back its plans for the voice assistant until it discontinued its Android and iOS apps back in 2021.