Siri, Cortana, Alexa and Google Now: What is the best voice assistant?

Money.cnn has tested Siri, Cortana, Google Now and Alexa by Amazon Echo, to determine, which is the best voice assistant in circulation. Here are the results of the test, with strengths and weaknesses of all four services.

The answer, or at least one of the many answers to what is the best among voice assistant Siri, Cortana, Alexa and Google Now, comes straight from the CNN, which through the portal money.cnn, has tested the four assistants voice: Siri by Apple, Cortana by Microsoft, Alexa by Amazon Echo and Now by Google.

Strengths

Siri, according to the source, is the best when it comes to natural language understanding. And what better understand the demands of the user, even if expressed in a natural way, ie through questions not locked into rigid patterns. You can talk to Siri in different ways to ask the same thing, and this characteristic makes the voice assistant ” more human “.

Google Now is one who knows what the other party, namely the user owner of the smartphone. The services Google collect an impressive amount of data, so that often fail to deliver the cards through Google answers, even before the question is formulated. For example, predictive cards are able to anticipate their interests, the details of a route or on the next scheduled commitments. This feature will also own Siri with iOS 9, thanks to the function known by the name of Proactive. Initial tests conducted on the beta of iOS 9, seem to agree with Apple, which is not only the best would go beyond Google Now, but it would beat down the line.

Cortana has its strength in the location-based reminders, and works well with commands like ” Remember to do something when I get home. ” The strength of Alexa is that it is always listening and is able to hear the commands of the user even when they are in another room; the microphone integrated in the speaker is quite powerful. Alexa is able to handle only a few commands, when compared to the tasks which instead can carry out other assistant’s voice, but not for this is less useful.

Weaknesses

When the source goes on to analyze the weaknesses of the various screen readers, it is highlighted the lack of integration with third-party applications. Apple (excluding Alexa that does not interact with any app) is to put worse in this field, while Google seems to have an edge. Recently, but are limited to the stars and stripes, you can also send WhatsApp messages directly from Google Now, by giving the order vocally, without touching the smartphone.

Points of interest

But when the source has asked the four screen readers to find a place to grab a coffee, Siri was the quicker, showing directly the OSD. Google and Cortana showed a list of places, although the list of Cortana was rather daunting. Alexa, instead, is entirely outside of these possibilities, given that absolutely does not respond to this type of commands.

Humor and personality

The race for the best voice assistant passes for humor. The source asked the four candidates to tell a joke. The humor of Siri is a bit mutton, because often begins to tell a story without end it: ” How many does it take to iPhone … ok, it does not matter. ” Alexa and Cortana indulge in jokes less original, but at least complete the joke. Google Now does not tell jokes, but the voice assistant of Google is still full of easter egg, which do not add any functionality, but allow you to have a laugh.

Navigation

Tie between Cortana, Siri and Google Now also when it comes to navigation: all three systems are absolutely ready to travel and work well when you ask them to turn into GPS. Alexa is the only locked up at home.

Who wins now?

Money.cnn choose Google Now and, surprisingly, Alexa Amazon. The first for its ability to understand and anticipate the moves of the user, while the latter, despite its limitations, is practically irreplaceable when it comes to buying on Amazon, read news, check the music or set a reminder.

Who will win in the future?

Siri is pushing a lot on home automation with HomeKit and on cars with CarPlay without becoming integrations possible with the human body thanks to HealthKit. Google Now, although it deserves a little of personality, has the advantage of running on Android, iPhone and PC, while the fate of Cortana is linked, for better or for worse in Windows 10, which is still early to make predictions.

Cortana will also be available on Android and iOS soon, and this just might be the move to make it the most widely used in the coming years. Alexa is the one with the more uncertain future, but at the same time with the highest margins for improvement: if Amazon had tied him to the Fire Phones would be dead and buried, but instead will live in many other hardware sold through Amazon.