Google Assistant has once again emerged victorious in a new voice command study that pitted the AI against its competition the likes of Alexa, Siri, and Bixby.
Bret Kinsella’s research team at voice-computing and AI research outfit Voicebot.ai set out to determine which of the four AIs would emerge victorious in a study mandating hundreds of questions about brands. Kinsella’s team fed the AIs over 4,000 search queries.
In the end, Google Assistant correctly identified 92% of its queries on a phone; on its home speaker, Google Assistant correctly answered 81% of search queries. In contrast, Amazon Alexa answered 34%, Samsung’s Bixby answered 32%, and Apple’s HomePod Siri 28%.
This isn’t the first time Google Assistant has beat out its rivals in a study of this kind. Just last month, a study conducted by Nature Digital Medicine Journal discovered that Google Assistant understands 92% of medicine brand names and 84% of generic names, while Alexa only understands 55% brand medicine names and 46% generic names. Siri understands 58% brand names and 51% generic names.
In 2018, an AI study conducted by research firm Loup Ventures demonstrated Google Assistant’s superiority to Alexa, Siri, and Cortana. The study consisted of 800 questions researchers asked the AIs in categories such as commerce, information, navigation, command, and local. Google Assistant understood 100% of the questions, while Siri came in second with 99%.
Cortana and Alexa understood 98% of the questions in the study. Google Assistant responded to 85% of the questions correctly, seven percentage points higher than Siri (78%). The study also highlighted Google Assistant’s superiority in commerce questions.
Google Assistant and Siri both reported above 10% improvement in the number of questions correctly answered while Microsoft’s Cortana only improved by 3 percentage points.
Stone Temple Consulting Corporation did its own 2018 intelligence ranking which shows that Google Assistant still sits atop the five top voice command assistants, though the gap is closing in intelligence as Amazon’s Alexa improved by a growth rate of 270%.
Google Assistant attempted to answer 80% of the questions provided and answered 90% of those questions correctly, while Cortana answered 65% of the questions provided and answered over 80% of those correctly. Siri answered over 80% of the questions it attempted but it only attempted 40% of the questions provided.
During CES 2019, Google announced its new platform, Google Assistant Connect, which looks to bring its AI to low-powered devices such as E-ink displays (for example). The service is reminiscent of Alexa Connect, Amazon’s own effort to bring its AI to low-powered devices.
The LG G7 ThinQ launched with a Google Assistant button, but Google says that a dedicated Google Assistant button is coming to more Android handsets in the future.
Google Assistant, known formerly as Google Now, is an artificial intelligence voice command that speaks to users when a user says a certain command such as “Hey Google” or “Ok Google.” Google Assistant was formerly a “female” voice but a masculine voice has been added for customization. Music legend John Legend has added his voice to Google Assistant.
You can activate Google Assistant by visiting your Android phone settings, then select “Google services & preferences,” scrolling down to “Search, Assistant, & Voice,” then selecting “Google Assistant.”