Microsoft is inside of Skype, letting its smart assistant jump into private and group chats to offer assistance in making plans and looking up information. Cortana will be available on both iOS and Android, but Microsoft says its assistant “will be gradually rolled out” starting in the US, so you might not have access yet.

This Cortana integration was announced more than a year and a half ago, and it’s not totally clear what accounts for the long delay. The implementation here seems to be pretty much identical to what we’ve already seen Facebook do with its assistant in Messenger and Google do with its assistant in Allo: as you’re chatting with friends, Cortana may pop…

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