Windows 10 comes with a personal digital productivity assistant called Cortana -  a similar idea to Siri on the iPhone or Alexa on Amazon devices

 

Basically you can speak/type questions and Cortana will find answers for you - you can use it to search the internet, look through your files, check the news and weather, set reminders, send emails and much more

 

Cortana can also fully integrates with many of your apps such as Outlook so it can notify you of upcoming diary appointments (and even warn that you need to leave early due to traffic/accidents on your route)

 

The more you use Cortana, the more it will learn about you and your interests to provide better responses

 

To get started with Cortana click the icon (as shown circled in red below)

 

The Cortana window will then appear (as below)

 

Cortana will listen for you to ask a question using your microphone - or on a desktop computer without a microphone you can type questions in the Ask Cortana box at the bottom

 

 

You can access Cortana settings by clicking the menu button (three dots as shown below circled in red) and clicking Settings

 

In here you can set a keyboard shortcut to launch Cortana, configure Microphone settings and enable automatic activation of Cortana by saying the wake word which is "Cortana"

 

N.B. You may need to enable Voice Activation under Start > Settings > Privacy > Voice activation - "Allow apps to use voice activation" and "Let Cortana respond to "Cortana" keyword", and also Allow apps to access your Microphone under Start > Settings > Privacy > Microphone