I've known Cortana for a long time. Fans of the video game Halo will remember the spunky, feminine AI as a wartime companion, who has since been translated into real code conscripted into Windows 10. In the game, Cortana was a quick-witted, near-omniscient guide; in real life, not so much.

From my time spent talking to the AI-turned-personal assistant, I've felt exultant, frustrated, neglected and misunderstood. I may be too personally invested in technology, but there's a very real emotional need to be understood when speaking to something, and repeated failure is harrowing. Now, this is just me speaking out loud to Cortana — I've had the opposite experience when using her text search features.

There are some things Cortana does very well— "she" is great at recognizing when to listen, reciting basic information like stock tickers and the weather, and like I said, text searching is great. (I know it's silly, but I'll refer to the software as a "she" for this article, as Microsoft does.)