Smart assistants like Google Assistant, Amazon’s Alexa, and Apple’s Siri are getting better and … [+]
Google’s smartest, Alexa is the most impulsive, and Siri is a bit of an ugly stepchild.
At least, according to one recent to study on top of AI-powered voice assistants by VoiceBot, suggesting that Amazon has the biggest impact on the voice industry. But what are the key differences that drive Google, Amazon and Apple in developing smart digital assistants?
“Amazon needs to sell us things,” said Brian Jackson, an analyst at Info-tech research group told me recently on the TechFirst podcast. “Google needs to deliver ads to us. What should Apple do? ”
Whether it’s selling stuff from Amazon.com or shipping more iPhones, Alexa may be able to expand its lead in voice-based AI assistants at the moment. The company recently announced new chat skills that integrate their voice apps – so-called skills – much better than before. Alexa now has well over 100,000 skills, ranging from a Lord of the Rings trivia match to games with Pikachu to premium skills as well Jeopardy, which are free to install but come with purchases in skill.
Amazon’s most recent innovation: now you can talk to Alexa without having to specify which voice app, or skill, you want to use.
It’s something like using an app on your phone without having to explicitly open it.
‘Let’s say you wanted to talk to Domino’s Pizza, exactly, a well – used voice application that delivers pizza to people. And you should say, ‘Alexa, I want to talk to Dominoes’ or ‘Alexa, ask Dominoes to order me a pizza,’ says Jackson. “There will be more conversation where you can say, ‘Alexa, I’m hungry,’ or ‘Alexa, it’s noon.’ And Alexa will say, ‘Oh, well, he probably wants to order a pizza …’ “
Amazon is now also expanding Alexa with essential, short-term memory.
So if you have already ordered this pizza from Domino’s, you do not need to remind Alexa of that previous conversation before you just ask when your pizza will arrive. Alexa will remember the context and already know how to check with Domino’s skills.
Of course, Google is not on hand, while Amazon is moving the state of the art in voice assistants forward. Thanks to its long search history and perhaps the most comprehensive knowledge graph on the planet, Google is generally considered as de smartest voice-based AI assistant.
“I think it’s Google Assistant, just by a nose probably about Amazon Alexa at the moment,” Jackson says in response to a question about which assistant is the smartest. “It’s just a little more conversation … when testing and every kind of comparison I’ve seen, Google Assistant gets that advantage for that conversation capability.”
But despite Apple hiring Google’s AI boss two years ago, Apple still can’t seem to get Siri up to par.
And that does not seem to be changing in iOS 14, Apple’s new mobile operating system that will probably launch in September of this year.
Although Siri now has 20 times more facts on hand than it did three years ago, Apple says the most prominent new feature in Apple’s iOS 14 preview for Siri, with top-notch billing, is that it has “a new compact design.” A new design might be fun – and in fact it is: Siri will no longer take full screen when active – but greater intelligence and usability is essential.
One of the problems, tech analyst Robert Scoble told me last year, is Apple’s focus on privacy.
Jackson agrees.
“It is possible that Apple’s focus on user privacy is something that is slowing down its development of voice assistants,” he says. “Because Google and Amazon, I think we all know that they are as willing as anything to take all the user data they can get their hands on and learn their algorithms on how to know us even better.”
This is a difficult issue to resolve, as Apple’s focus on privacy is one of its key differentiators, and an important calling card in an era when “big tech” is virtually synonymous with surveillance capitalism. It’s also what’s generally good for Apple’s customers: regular consumers.
Where Alexa’s Amazon shines is smart home and home automation.
Many of those 100,000+ Alexa skills control lights, garage doors, smart locks, security systems, dishwashers, coffee makers, and other toilets. Bad speakers, even as sales of Amazon Echoes and Google Homes dropped in Q1. Amazon has worked hard on its strategy to get Alexa into everything and make everything smart, and that strategy has paid off.
“You can now pay about $ 4 for this module that you just put in your dishwasher, or your microwave, or your oven, or whatever you are now, and suddenly Alexa can talk to it and give commands,” says Jackson. “Amazon has developed that vision to make Alexa a speech-first device that would master your smart home, be a hub to connect to all these other devices, and it’s cheap to integrate Alexa into your smart home gear . “
What does the future hold?
Well, of course, every assistant will get worse.
What you may also see is that open source AI developers will be releasing ever-improving assistants that work just for you … not for some big companies looking to sell products or place ads. One such current option is Mycroft, named for Sherlock Holmes’ most dangerous opponent.
That, of course, is a long shot, because open source projects typically do not have the resources of a Google, an Amazon, or an Apple.
But it is worth noting that open source software today is the heart of billions of devices: Mac OS X is built on an open source UNIX variant and thus, by extension, iOS, is the operating system. And Android is an open source operating system built on the Linux kernel. Each has an enormous number of its own functionalities built on top of those open source roots, of course, but most devices on the planet have open source operating systems.
Eventually, we’ll probably see the big assistants of today get a home in smartglasses, which are likely to be the next big evolution of personal technology platforms. This is an area where Google, with the still existing Google Glass (now for enterprise) and Apple, with multiple innovations and patents behind closed doors, can have an edge over Amazon.
“You do not want to touch them so badly and you can not have as many controls on them, so to talk to them and give commands to Siri, to check various interfaces, or Relay commands elsewhere, that would be useful,” since Jackson.
One thing that probably makes it even more challenging for voice assistants to win everywhere: it still feels strange to talk to your devices in public.
That social and psychological reality may be harder to change than innovating new personal technology platforms.
Get a full transcript of my interview with Brian Jackson here.
.
