It is very surprising to me how widespread the use of personal assistants has become.  Although artificial intelligence has always seemed to be just over the horizon to me, the popularity of voice assistants coupled with the vast amount of online content has now opened a new frontier in potential applications.

Who’s leading the charge?  As usual, in most areas, there are three primary contenders (remember the big 3 auto companies?).  Dan Moren gives Google the current lead in his analysis and testing (recent article published in Tom’s Guide, partially quoted below):

As if managing our interpersonal relationships weren’t already challenging enough in this digital day and age, now we have to worry about talking to artificial people as well. The rise of virtual assistants has been surprisingly swift, and the market hasn’t slowed down yet. But with so many choices for intelligent agents, the question is, Where do you put your trust?

So here’s a rundown of the current state of the art in the top three virtual assistants: Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant. We tested them on an Amazon Echo, iPhone 7 and Google Home, respectively, using a battery of questions to determine each of their skill levels.

While they offer many of the same features, each assistant has its own advantages and disadvantages — and, of course, the assistants’ software-based nature means that they’re all evolving at a rapid clip. But, as it stands today, this is how they fared.

Editor’s Note (5/31/18): This story was updated to reflect changes to each of the assistants’ abilities. Although the overall standings have not changed since the original story, both Google Assistant and Alexa have gained additional points, and widened their lead over Siri.

 

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