Cortana alternative for Windows 11 and Windows 10: what to use now

If you press the old Cortana button or say "Hey Cortana" and nothing happens, nothing is broken on your PC. Microsoft retired Cortana in Windows as a standalone app in the spring of 2023. It is gone on Windows 10 and Windows 11 alike, and there is no supported way to reinstall it.

The good news is that the jobs people used Cortana for still have a home. Most people used it for one of three things: asking a quick question, opening an app or a setting by voice, or setting a reminder. Each of those has a replacement today, and which one suits you depends on what you want the assistant to do.

What happened to Cortana

Microsoft's own support page puts it plainly: Cortana voice assistance in Windows as a standalone app was retired in the spring of 2023. Later that year Cortana also left Teams and Outlook on phones, and the last of its voice features in Outlook mobile ended in June 2024. So if a guide online tells you to turn Cortana back on in Settings, it was written before the change and the switch it describes no longer does anything.

If you still see a Cortana icon or a leftover shortcut, it is safe to unpin it from the taskbar. Right click it and choose to unpin, the way you would with any other app.

What Microsoft offers instead

On the same support page, Microsoft points to three things:

• Voice access in Windows 11. Built into Windows 11, version 22H2 and later. You control the PC and write text by speaking, one command at a time.
• Microsoft Copilot. A chat assistant you can type or speak to. On Windows, Microsoft says it can find, open and answer questions about files on your device, and guide you to the right option in Windows Settings. On new Windows 11 PCs the Copilot app comes installed.
• Copilot in the Microsoft 365 apps. Help inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, for people who use those apps with a Microsoft 365 plan.

Put simply: voice access replaces the "open this, click that" side of Cortana, and Copilot replaces the "ask a question" side. If you mainly want to speak instead of using the mouse, start with voice access. If you mainly want answers, start with Copilot.

How to turn on voice access in Windows 11

Voice access is built into Windows 11, version 22H2 and later. It lets you open apps, click, scroll and dictate text by speaking. It is a way of driving the computer with your voice: you say each step, and it carries that step out.

1. Open Settings › Accessibility › Speech. A quick way in is Win + I, then Accessibility in the list on the left.
2. Turn on the Voice access switch.
3. The first time, choose a language and let Windows download its speech files. This one download needs an internet connection; after it, voice access works without one.
4. Pick your microphone when it asks, and finish the short setup.
5. If you want it every time, tick the box to start voice access after you sign in.

Say "Voice access wake up" to have it listen and "Voice access sleep" to make it stop. Alt + Shift + B switches between the two from the keyboard. If it does not hear you, check Settings › Privacy & security › Microphone and make sure microphone access is on.

A good first test: say "Open Notepad", then dictate a sentence. If the words come out right, the microphone and the speech files are both working.

Which one to choose

Think about the last few things you would have asked Cortana for:

• "What's the weather?" or "How tall is Everest?" A chat assistant such as Copilot answers that kind of question well.
• "Open Settings, click Display, scroll down." Voice access does exactly that, step by step, in your own voice.
• "Make the screen dimmer" or "Find my March bill". Here you want the result, not the steps: something that goes and does the whole job and tells you when it is done.

Nothing stops you from using more than one. Plenty of people keep voice access for dictation and use a separate assistant for whole jobs. If you would rather find a setting yourself, our free Windows and Mac settings finder shows where each one lives.

An assistant that does the whole job: Key

For the third kind of request, where you want the job done rather than the steps read out, there is Key.

Key is a free personal assistant that lives on your computer, on Windows 10 and 11 and on any Mac with macOS 11 Big Sur or newer. You speak to it or type to it, and it opens your apps, finds your files and changes your settings, then tells you what it did. It works in the real windows you already use and presses the real buttons; there is nothing to connect first.

Half a sentence is enough: "Turn the brightness down", "Make the text bigger", "Where did that download go?", "Mute everything". Before it reports, it reads the result back, and when it could not check, it says so. It never deletes for good, never types a password, and stops before paying until you say yes.

It is free to download, with no card and no trial. More: what a desktop assistant can do and is it safe to let an assistant use your computer.

Questions people ask

Is Cortana still available on Windows 11?

No. Microsoft retired Cortana as a standalone app in Windows in the spring of 2023, on both Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Can I reinstall Cortana?

No. Microsoft retired it, and there is no supported way to bring it back on Windows 10 or Windows 11.

What did Microsoft suggest instead of Cortana?

Microsoft points to voice access in Windows 11, Microsoft Copilot, and Copilot in the Microsoft 365 apps.

Does voice access work on Windows 10?

Microsoft lists voice access for Windows 11, version 22H2 and later. On Windows 10 you would need a different tool.

Does voice access need the internet?

Only for the first download of the speech files for your language. After that, Microsoft says it works without an internet connection.

Related guide: Siri for Windows: is there one, and what to use on a PC instead

Related guide: Copilot alternative for Windows: what each assistant does, and how to choose