Alexa VS Google Assistant
Amazon's Alexa might have had a head start on Google’s AI, but in a short space of time Assistant has drawn on the Big G’s infinite resources and risen to the challenge.
Today, the battle between the Google Assistant and Alexa often feels like a tit-for-tat on features, and in the fullness it’s possible we’ll see the two assistant become more interchangeable, but right now there are some important distinctions that still set them apart.
Voice is hailed as the new computing paradigm, but that won’t be the case until we can talk to our computers as naturally as we would a friend. AI needs to feel human – or at the very least, understand us as humans – if we’re going to opt to chat to it instead of tapping a touchscreen or pushing a button.
The good news is - with both the contender from Mountain View and its opponent from Seattle - is that the speaking and listening part of the equation is improving all the time.
Alexa and Assistant are both activated by ‘wake words’, which aren’t yet fully customisable on either platform. You can choose to use “OK, Google” or “Hey Google” for Assistant on the fly, while Alexa lets you choose between four wake words from the app - Alexa, Amazon, Echo or Computer.
When it comes to the actual back and forth of conversation, it's hard to pick between the two.
Google had the edge with follow-up questions and context when it launched its Continued Conversation feature a couple of years back.
Amazon hit back with Alexa Follow-Up mode almost immediately though. With these modes switched on (optional on both platforms), you don’t have to say the wake word again, you just have to follow up your initial request with a new one.
Alexa has an upper hand though, and can now understand context much better. For instance, if you whisper to Alexa, Alexa will understand that you might have a headache or don't want to wake someone up, so it'll whisper back. It can even give you contextual answers. So if you want a news report, it'll speak like a newscaster.
And, with the new Echo 4th generation, powered by Amazon’s AZ1 Neural Edge processor, Alexa is about to get a whole lot smarter.
With the AZ1 on board, Alexa will be a lot more conversational. There will be a new, all-neural, speech recognition model that will process speech faster, making Alexa even more responsive.
You can say, "Alexa, join our conversation" and you'll then be able to ditch the wake word and the voice assistants will be able to handle multiple participants in these more natural conversations.
Both Alexa and Assistant are pretty good when it comes to voice recognition, though the quality of microphone on the device you're barking at will obviously affect that.
If we had to choose, Assistant is just a smidge more consistent, but it’s a close race. You can also set multiple user profiles for both Assistant and Alexa on certain supported devices, so they'll recognise who’s speaking to it and change the results it gives back depending on who’s talking. Sure, it can talk the talk, but can it… err, do the assisting? After all, we’re not here to make friends. Right now these two are winning on different fronts: Google Assistant is best at the information it can provide, while Alexa trumps on features and smart home control. It’s been this way for some time now, though Assistant is narrowing the gap.
Assistant has a natural advantage here by drawing from Google's almighty knowledge graph, while Amazon has had a bit more work to do. Google has a long history in search (not sure you've heard of it, but Google Search is pretty popular) that makes it a slightly better performer when asking it for information.
With so many services under Google's purview, naturally Assistant is more tightly integrated to these than Alexa too. For example, if you’re a big user of Gmail or a Google Calendar you can use your Home speaker to tap into all of that. Alexa obviously gives you a direct line to Amazon's store.
If you're using an Android smartphone, you'll probably have Google Assistant on there too, though this operates a little differently to the one you'll find in the Home speakers.
