5-2 Assignment: First Draft of Critical Analysis Essay Assignment
In 2014, Foster began building a creative team that drafted a multipage
personality brief for Microsoft’s not-yet-released virtual assistant.
“If we imagined Cortana as a person,” a product manager named Marcus
Ash asked the team, “who would Cortana be?”
Cortana was an assistant, of course. Microsoft product researchers had
interviewed human executive assistants and learned that they calibrate
their demeanors to communicate that while they must cheerfully serve,
they are by no means servants to be disrespected or harassed. So in the
personality brief, Foster and his team called for a balance of personal
warmth and professional detachment. Cortana is “witty, caring,
charming, intelligent,” the team decided, Ash says. As a professional
assistant, though, she is not overly informal and instead projects
efficiency. “It is not her first turn around the block,” Ash says. “She
has been an assistant for a long time and has the confidence of ‘I’m
great at my job.’ ”
Real people aren’t exclusively defined by their professions, and the
creative team decided that the same would be true for Cortana. So who
was she outside of work?
