Microsoft introduces platform to build voice skills for Cortana

IANS  |  Orlando (Florida) 

To help businesses create custom voice apps for their employees and users, has launched the "Skills Kit for Enterprise" for developers.

Currently available by invitation only, the development platform was unveiled at "Ignite" conference in Orlando, on Monday.

"At heart, we are about providing valuable assistance to users throughout their day. That assistance takes different forms depending on where the users are in their day and what they are trying to do," said Javier Soltero, Corporate of

"It's important for enterprises to be able to enable their workforces to use to perform company-specific tasks," he added.

According to Vivek Goswami, a on Soltero's team, the platform is powered by the and leverages Language Understanding from Azure Cognitive Services, allowing developers to create company-specific skills for Cortana using known and trusted tools.

Additional features include control via Azure Active Directory over when skills are deployed and who can access them.

"The specific skills that enterprises will create for Cortana remain to be revealed," noted Goswami.

As a proof of concept, IT developers at Microsoft used the enterprise platform to create an IT help desk skill that enables Cortana to file tickets for employees who are having computer problems and connect them to someone who can help.

--IANS

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First Published: Tue, September 25 2018. 10:32 IST