When getting together for a meeting with new people, it can be nice to know their background and what they do. That information is usually tied up in their social networking profiles, but it can be hard to remember to creep on someone until after they’re right in front of you.
Microsoft is aiming to make it easier for people to do just that with a new integration the company announced Thursday between its digital assistant Cortana and enterprise social network LinkedIn. When users connect their LinkedIn account with Cortana, the assistant will be able to look through their calendar and link the identities of people who are attending the same event with their LinkedIn profiles.
Microsoft A screenshot of the Cortana integration on Windows 10.
Once that happens, Cortana can then show information from those profiles inside information about a user’s upcoming event. That usually includes things like name, profile photo and job title.
Of course, the new functionality can also be a little bit creepy, since that sort of personal information isn’t usually connected with calendar data. It’s also a win for LinkedIn, which will likely get more information about how people are professionally connected with one another.
This new feature could be a harbinger of things to come for Cortana, which Microsoft has been pushing as one of the tentpole features of Windows 10. The virtual assistant already connects with Office 365, which it uses to gather information and provide insights about work relationships, meetings and documents.
The functionality is rolling out slowly to users starting Thursday, though it’s not clear when Microsoft will complete the process of enabling it for everyone. Until then, users will have to make do with just looking at LinkedIn on the Web in order to get their personal information fix.