Cortana Gets Ability to Schedule Meetings; Skype Bots to Start Talking in 2017

Microsoft is not just getting prepared to bring Cortana to your smart home, but is also tasking it to schedule meetings for you. The company has launched a new incubation project codenamed "Calendar.help" which gives Cortana, the personal digital assistant, ability to arrange meetings on your behalf. Microsoft has also confirmed that talking bots are coming to Skype in 2017.

Microsoft says that the "Calendar.help" project is the company's latest attempt to bring together artificial intelligence (AI), conversational computing and calendaring. The project combines efforts from Microsoft Research, Outlook, Cortana, and Genee, a scheduling AI start up that was acquired by Microsoft back in August. Calendar.help is currently in an exclusive preview for customers.

To get started, users when writing an email for meetings have to give Cortana instructions such as length of the meeting, timing, and location, all of which are used by the assistant for setting up the meeting.

"After you send the email, Cortana looks at your calendar to find times you are available and then reaches out to the invitees to propose times. Cortana communicates directly with the attendees so the back and forth emailing won't clutter your inbox. Cortana also follows up with attendees if they don't respond within 48 hours," explained the Calendar.help team.

Microsoft claims that all interactions are natural and conversational-as if "a real-life assistant was coordinating the meeting." It adds that the service is powered by both machine and human intelligence to ensure that all scheduling requests are handled with accuracy.

Separately, Skype will be getting talking bots next year. The company has announced that it will make Skype calling API available to its partners which will mean that consumers will get more ways to interact with services on Skype.

"Bots will be able to send rich media cards, adding the capability to bring video, audio, and GIFs into chat conversations. Combined, these new features will drive richer and more engaging experiences for our users, making 2017-and the years ahead-incredibly exciting," wrote Skype team in a blog post.

Skype has named some partners including Expedia.com, which will help customers search for hotels, book, manage reservations, and confirm or cancel hotels and flights. Skype says Expedia's bot is one of the first bots that allows calling directly to Expedia. Another partner is UPS, a shipping company, which created bot on Skype to track packages, calculate shipping rates, and find a user's local branch. StubHub, the online event ticketing player, will also have a Skype bot that will allow users to purchase tickets for rock concerts, sports events, and more all from within your Skype window.