Did Amazon and Microsoft just become best friends? Yep — at least when it comes to their digital assistants.

The two Seattle-based tech giants announced on Wednesday that Microsoft’s Cortana and Amazon’s Alexa will now be able to communicate with each other. Alexa users will be able to use Cortana’s features, like coordinating meetings and checking work calendars, while Cortana users can harness Alexa to use their smart home devices and shop on Amazon.com — all with voice activation.

“The world is big and so multifaceted. There are going to be multiple successful intelligent agents, each with access to different sets of data and with different specialized skill areas,” said Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in a statement accompanying the partnership Wednesday. “Together, their strengths will complement each other and provide customers with a richer and even more helpful experience.”

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It’s unusual for juggernauts the size of Microsoft and Amazon to partner on emerging technologies like this. Bezos first approached Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella with the idea in May 2016, who was receptive to it. With stiff competition from Apple and Google in the artificial intelligence sphere, the two execs agreed it was in the best interest of their companies to make their digital assistants compatible.

“Ensuring Cortana is available for our customers everywhere and across any device is a key priority for us,” said Nadella. “Bringing Cortana’s knowledge, Office 365 integration, commitments, and reminders to Alexa is a great step toward that goal.”

The arrangement might not be seamless at first. Alexa users will have to say “Alexa, open Cortana,” and vice versa, to fire up the other assistant’s attributes. But it’s a pairing that should pay off for both juggernauts, with Alexa featured on about 70 percent of all smart speakers, and Cortana having nearly 150 million monthly users on PC.

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Alexa and Cortana will officially start talking to each other later this year.

6 Tech Giants Shaking Up News, From Jeff Bezos to Laurene Powell Jobs (Photos)

Tech leaders are increasingly intertwined with the news business. While some want to support old properties, one set out to destroy a new one. Here they are.
Jeff Bezos – Washington Post

The Amazon founder purchased the Washington Post in 2013 for $250 million in cash. President Trump has called the paper the “Amazon Washington Post.”

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Chris Hughes - The New Republic

The Facebook co-founder purchased The New Republic in 2012, becoming executive chairman and publisher. However, he sold the venerable political magazine to Win McCormack in 2016, saying he "underestimated the difficulty of transitioning an old and traditional institution into a digital media company in today’s quickly evolving climate."

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Pierre Omidyar - The Intercept

The eBay founder is a well-known philanthropist who created First Look Media, a journalism venture behind The Intercept. Inspired by Edward Snowden's leaks. Omidyar teamed up with journalists Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras to launch the website “dedicated to the kind of reporting those disclosures required: fearless, adversarial journalism.”

Also Read: Former Intercept Journalist Arrested for Bomb Threats on Jewish Sites
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Peter Thiel

The PayPal co-founder doesn’t own a news organization, but he makes this list because he essentially ended one -- Gawker -- proving once again the power of an angry billionaire. Thiel secretly bankrolled Hulk Hogan’s sex-tape lawsuit against Gawker Media because he was upset that the website once outed him as gay. Hogan won the defamation lawsuit against the site that sent its parent company into bankruptcy, and Gawker.com is no longer operating.

Also Read: Gawker Media to Sell Flagship Site, Hulk Hogan to Receive 45 Percent of Proceeds
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Mark Zuckerberg – Facebook

OK, so Facebook isn’t technically a news organization… yet. However, the company is preparing to launch its much-anticipated lineup of original content later this summer, and there are also signs that it's on the verge of becoming an even bigger media platform.

Campbell Brown, Head of News Partnerships at Facebook, confirmed last week it’s developing a subscription service for publishers willing to post articles directly to Facebook Instant Articles, rather than their native websites.

Also Read: 3 Ways Facebook Can Jump Into the News Business
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Tech is increasingly intertwined with news, for better or worse

Tech leaders are increasingly intertwined with the news business. While some want to support old properties, one set out to destroy a new one. Here they are.

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