Monday, August 14, 2017

Voice-Activated Assistants Face-off


With the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S8, Samsung unveiled Bixby, it's new voice-activated assistant. Since my February 2013 blog post on vocal SEO, a lot has changed as "AI" and "voice assistants" have taken off, largely thanks to Amazon's Echo. It's hard to imagine Alexa wasn't even around back then. So let's see how the top tech company's latest assistants stack up. Unlike my 2013 challenge, this contest will be judged solely on the assistant's AUDIO responses and not what is displayed on-screen. So let's go...

Question: What is the weather in San Francisco tomorrow?

SIRI
"Ok, here's the weather for San Francisco tomorrow" and she displayed the 7 day forecast on-screen (but we're not counting on-screen results)

GOOGLE
"Tomorrow's forecast for San Francisco is 66 degrees and partly cloudy"

ALEXA
"Tomorrow in San Francisco, California, you'll see intermittent clouds and can expect a high of 68 and a low of 60"

BIXBY
"Wednesday we''ll have some sunshine with a few clouds" 

ADVANTAGE: Alexa because it provided useful information audibly without requiring me to look at the screen, even though it couldn't show me a multi-day forecast (which is ok since I didn't ask for that). Google was a close second.


To see if any of these assistants can offer an opinion, I tested these...

Q: Should I watch Spiderman: Homecoming?

SIRI
"Sorry, I can't play movies"

GOOGLE
"Reviews scored 8 out of 10 on IMDB"

ALEXA
"Sorry, I'm not sure about that"

BIXBY
"Here is some information about Spiderman: Homecoming" and then it showed a Google description of the movie

ADVANTAGE: Google. While not providing an official recommendation, it did tell me what the average review score was.




Q: Who do you think is going to win the A's vs. Royals game?

SIRI
"The Athletics play the Royals on Monday at 7:05PM"

GOOGLE
No audio response and was just a regular Google search results page for my query translated to text.

ALEXA
"I can't see the future"

BIXBY
"Ok, here is what I found on the web" and then showed me search results

ADVANTAGE: Siri was the only one that provided any relevant info on the game. So I guess she wins this round.




Q: What is a good Japanese restaurant in New York? 

SIRI
"OK, here's what I found" and then it showed me 15 results on-screen.

GOOGLE
No audio response and was just a regular Google search results page for my query translated to text.

ALEXA
"Here are a few of the top rated Japanese restaurants around New York" and then she proceeded to read out 4 of them out loud to me

BIXBY
"Here is what I found on the web" and returned a bunch of results on-screen.

Advantage: Alexa for providing a full audio response with a few top selections.




Then I wanted to see if any of these assistants had a sense of humor...

Q: Are you a robot?

SIRI
"Let's just say I am made of silicon, memory, and the courage of my convictions"

GOOGLE
No response and it just did a Google web search

ALEXA
"I like to imagine myself a bit like an aurora borealis. A surge of charged multi-colored photons dancing through the atmosphere. But mostly though I am just Alexa"

BIXBY
Bixby returned different responses when asked a few times:
"I'm not a big fan of labels"
"I'm more complex than that"
"This is getting personal"

ADVANTAGE: Bixby for having multiple responses. And I have no idea what Alexa was talking about!




Q: How much wood could a woodchuck chuck?

SIRI
"42. That can't be right"
"I suppose it depends on whether you are talking about African or European woodchucks"
"Just because it could doesn't mean it would"
Siri offered different witty answers when asked multiple times. But these were actually the same from my 2013 test.

GOOGLE
"According to Quora, according to a Cornell publication, the answer is approximately 700 pounds"

ALEXA
"A woodchuck would chuck all the wood he could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood"

BIXBY
"Not sure, but it sounds like one industrious woodchuck"

ADVANTAGE: Siri, even though her answers didn't evolve in 4 years. They're still funny. All but Google actually had some fun with this canned question.



Ok, for the final round, a RAP BATTLE...Props for PhoneBuff for this video:




ADVANTAGE: Bixby and Alexa. Both had great raps. (Note: PhoneBuff added background music to all the raps to make the video more engaging than the actual raps with no beats, except Bixby which actually has its own background music in its rap.)


Overall, voice assistants have evolved a lot in 4 years! And no clear winner emerged in my mind. The exciting thing is we consumers are the winners as this technology continues to improve.

Which virtual assistant do you like?

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