Microsoft Is to Split up Search and Cortana in Windows 10

After Cortana started appearing on Windows PCs, it has been more than three years. Now, Microsoft may be exploring major changes to how Search is handled on Windows operating system.

According to Windows Insiders, icons for Search and Cortana in the Windows taskbar are separate on the latest Insider Preview build, which means a big change for Microsoft in strategy.

Microsoft to Separate Windows Search from Cortana

A Windows Blog Italia report says that something new of the voice assistant, Cortana will come includes multi-user recognition and separation from Windows 10 Search. The separation is showing up on Windows 10 19H1 Insider Preview Build 18298 but they haven’t seen this change when running this build on a Surface Book.

Perhaps Microsoft is A/B testing the new feature right now. If so, not all Windows Insiders can see the change.

Since Cortana appeared, Microsoft had bundled Search with the digital voice assistant. This allows users to search local files apps, documents, emails and more on their computers, as well as search the web. And the detailed results can be opened as a Bing search result in a web browser.

Once Search is separate from Cortana, Search can be handled as previous Windows versions via its specialized search box. In the taskbar, it will be depicted with a magnifying glass, and just adjacent to the circular icon of Cortana.

While Cortana will simply keep track of your Cortana Notebook, Cortana Settings, Cortana-powered devices, and Reminders. And you can also perform voice commands as usual.

According to the report, Search has a new interface that is divided into tabs and there is the addition of the Fluent Design in the bar at the top, focusing on the activities of the Timeline. And you can have the Search icon on the taskbar, hide it or have the search bar.

On the other hand, when clicking the Cortana icon, it allows users to start speech recognition. At the moment, users must use the voice to communicate with this virtual assistant.

Although Cortana and Search are separate, both of them will be still able to talk to each other. And users can still search for documents via the Cortana experience and access basic Cortana commands via searching including weather.

Besides, Microsoft is to integrate Cortana throughout the operating system rather than go to the dedicated Cortana entry point for assistant-like tasks.

Why Split Cortana and Windows Search

Some users may be curious about the reason for the separation of Search and Cortana. Actually, it is quite simple. This way allows Microsoft to develop these two experiences without affecting each another.

When Windows 10 was first launched, Cortana and Search experience was dominated by Cortana. It was a Cortana centric feature and Search is integrated into it. Some users hated it and they only wanted Search. Thus, Microsoft de-emphasized Cortana in Search in the last several Windows 10 updates but prioritized the search experience.

To split up Search and Cortana can let Microsoft build out a dedicated assistant experience for Cortana without degrading the search experience, and improve search experience without degrading any assistant experience. It is win-win for everyone, especially for persons who hope for an enhanced Cortana experience on Windows 10.

Final Words

Currently, we don’t know the estimated time of arrival for Search and Cortana split to happen. It may be released to the public after a few months or never ship since a lot of work that Microsoft is doing are experimental.

But there is one thing definite, that is Microsoft is thinking about this stuff and want to improve the Cortana and Search experiences on Windows 10.