Category: Amazon Alexa

Loup Ventures has posted their second annual Digital Assistant report and it shows just how accurate and reliable Google Assistant is when compared to its competitors.  In the report, Google Assistant was able to answer the 800 questions asked of it with 86% accuracy and it understood 100% of the questions it was asked during the test.  Assistant’s nearest competitor was Apple Siri which had a 78.5% accuracy rate and a 99% understanding rate.

The results reflect what a lot of people, particularly the Android faithful, felt about Google’s AI driven assistant.  Now it has more concrete proof to support those subjective feelings with this report from Loup Ventures.

In what could prove to be the clearest sign yet that the personal assistant race is coming down to two horses, Microsoft appears to be set to allow both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant on the Xbox One.  The news, along with a supporting screenshot, came from the team over at Windows Central and points to users having the option to leverage the personal assistant of their choice on their Xbox One for controlling the device from their phone.

The news of this falls in line with other news that Microsoft is fundamentally shifting Cortana, their digital assistant, away from the consumer market and more toward the productivity side of things and not necessarily a personal assistant.  It appears that Microsoft is conceding to Alexa and Google Assistant.

For the second time in less than six months, it looks like Google is going to be revamping the online Google Store.  A report from Bloomberg, citing unnamed sources within Google, suggests that the revamp will have Google Assistant front-and-center in the redesign where Google will sell their devices and those of sister Alphabet companies like Nest.

The move is in response to Amazon and their own digital assistant, Amazon Alexa.  Amazon had a two year start on Google when it came to personal AI-driven assistants, with Amazon still holding an estimated 68% market share with their Amazon Echo devices compared to the 25% for Google with Google Home.  The disparity has the Mountain View company worried and they are going all out to meet Amazon head on in the space.

Here is another great Today’s Deal for everyone, especially those who use Amazon Alexa and Amazon Echo devices already.  Today only you can pick up an Amazon Echo Dot for $39.  That is a savings of $10 and the pricing is good on either the black or white models to match your decor.

The promotion on the Amazon Echo Dot is on the 2nd generation of the smaller Echo device and these are new units.  They are not refurbished.  The Echo Dot gives you hands-free access to Amazon Alexa, the company’s Artificial Intelligence powered personal assistant, and allows you to access thousands of skills to control your smart home devices or other services.  The Echo Dot has 7 far-field microphones built in so it can easily handle being the primary device in a room.

In a Business Insider report that was published today, Microsoft Cortana only trails Google Assistant in overall answer accuracy as well as the number of questions asked.  In fact, Assistant and Cortana were well ahead of Apple Siri and Amazon Alexa in both categories.

The report focused on the news from earlier this week that Apple is replacing Bing as the default search engine for Siri in MacOS High Sierra and iOS 11 and points out that the move, which will have Siri leverage Google Search APIs, will likely dramatically help Apple’s assistant in its use and accuracy.

Ah, the love between Amazon and Google shows itself once more…. NOT!  It appears that the latest spat between the two giants is over YouTube and the newish Amazon Echo Show.

Users of the new Alexa-powered smart device were cut off from YouTube yesterday with a warning that the smart speaker was unable to play content from the world’s largest video site.  Amazon states that they are disappointed, laying the blame at the feet of Google.  Google, in return, indicates that the reason for the shutdown is due to a violation of the terms of service and that they made Amazon aware that Tuesday was the drop date.