You Can Now Talk to Alexa Using Cortana

You can now use Cortana to talk to Alexa, if you live in the US. Other countries are coming later.

To get started simply trigger Cortana and say “open Alexa.” You’ll be prompted to sign into an Amazon account, as shown above, but after that you’ll be able to access Alexa from Cortana whenever you want with the same command.

Note that typing “open Alexa” will not work—you need to trigger this with a voice command.

RELATED: Alexa, Why Is Cortana Still on My Computer?

You can also open Cortana using Alexa-compatible devices, but let’s be real: hardly anyone is going to do that. Microsoft has pushed Cortana hard, giving it some of the most prominent screen real estate known to humanity, but the voice assistant hasn’t really caught on in a big way. Maybe giving Cortana access to the most popular voice assistant on the planet will help, but it also might be too little too late: PC makers are already building Alexa into computers directly.

Still, if you’re an Echo user, you’ve got a compelling reason to open Cortana every once and a while. Give it a shot.