… On Monday, Microsoft is starting a relatively straightforward survey website called Microsoft Prediction Lab, where users can submit their views and predictions regarding politics, sports and other subjects. The more novel part of Microsoft’s plan will come later, though, when Cortana — Microsoft’s answer to Siri — could start conducting interviews herself, imitating human pollsters.
Microsoft’s entry into surveys could become another step in the polling field’s journey away from random-digit dialing of landline telephones and toward newer technologies like cellphones and the Internet. Polling analysts will watch Cortana not just because of its novelty but also because of its potential to provide a human-sounding voice at little cost. CONT.
Alan Schwarz, New York Times