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Microsoft’s head of reasearch talks about WP’s virtual assistant

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The rumor mill has been abuzz with talk of Microsoft’s upcoming virtual assistant, which will borrow its personality from Cortana (you know, from Halo). Now, Head of Microsoft Research, Peter Lee, has confirmed that the a “big focus” for the company is artificial intelligence, including a virtual assistant.

The video interview features a short glimpse of a virtual assistant prototype at work but somewhat disappointingly it didn’t use Cortana’s avatar.

He doesn’t mention Cortana by name at all, but we guess the team could be saving that particular announcement for the Microsoft BUILD conference in the beginning of April.

Anyway, Mr. Lee says the research team has looked into what types of avatars people prefer (male or female) and how people relate to them. The avatar will be customizable, which ideally means Cortana will be an option.

Here’s the video itself, the assistant prototype can be seen around 50 seconds in.

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