Microsoft introduces Cortana Intelligence Institute

Microsoft has introduced the establishment of the Cortana Intelligence Institute, a collaboration among Microsoft Research, Cortana Research and RMIT University that aims to improve the artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities of Microsoft’s digital assistant Cortana.

“Working with RMIT on the Cortana Intelligence Institute is an amazing chance to inject new thinking in what we build,” said Andrew Shuman, corporate vice president of Cortana Engineering.

The focus of the Institute is to advance Cortana in task intelligence and move its abilities from receiving data on the weather to supporting complex tasked like assisting with chores like cooking and calendar management.

“Working collaboratively with industry is a key to ensuring our research provides practical solutions to real-world problems,” said Mark Sanderson, an information retrieval researcher at RMIT University and a co-chief investigator of the Institute. “We are excited that our students and researchers can work with the Cortana Research team on such high-impact research that has potential to significantly benefit so many people.”