Google announced at CES this week that Assistant has over 500 million users. And those numbers are from around the world.
That might seem a bit low, considering there are more than 2.5 billion active Android devices (as of May 2019). But it’s important to remember that Google Assistant is not available in every country. And of those 2.5 billion devices, a good portion are in China – which doesn’t have Google at all.
Of course, that doesn’t take into account things like smart speakers, Chromebooks and other products that have the Google Assistant.
This puts Google Assistant far ahead of Amazon Alexa
While Amazon has sold more smart speakers with Alexa built-in, Google has more people using Assistant.
Now this can be a bit of an unfair comparison. Considering the fact that Google does have a pool of around 2.5 billion active Android devices. All of which have the ability to run the Google Assistant (in countries that it’s available in) on top of its Nest smart speakers, smart displays and even Chromebooks.
The last time Amazon announced how many active users Alexa had, it was around 100 million. And that was a year ago, at CES 2019. So it’s likely much higher now, but that’s the last number that we have to go by.
Many still feel that Google Assistant is better. And depending on what you’re doing with the assistant, it is. Google Assistant is generally better with questions and finding you answers. The reason for this is quite simple, it has the most popular search engine behind it – Google. While Amazon is still much better when it comes to smart home, because it supports more brands than Google does.
Google brought many updates to Assistant at CES 2020
While having 500 million users is quite a milestone for Google Assistant, the company is not resting on its laurels.
Google announced a boatload of new features and changes to the Assistant at CES 2020 this week.
One of the cooler, and perhaps more useful features that was announced, is for smart displays. And it’s a sticky note feature. So you can leave notes on your smart display. Maybe a to-do list for when your kids get home from school, or a shopping list.
Google also brought speed-dial to Assistant. So you can easily dial those that you want to call or video chat with (on smart displays) by using your voice. Which is a really cool feature, and one that was a long time coming.