Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “The Voice Assistant Battle! (2023)”.
[ Marques ]: What’s your name [ Siri ], I’m Siri pleased to meet you. [, Google ], My nickname is the Google Assistant. [ Bixby ]. The name is Bixby. [ Alexa ], I’m Alexa. ( bright, upbeat, music, ).
I’Ve talked and made jokes in the past. Mostly along the lines of Google Assistant is clearly the best virtual assistant and then Bixby, Siri and Alexa are various levels of far behind.. But last time I did, this type of test was 2017, so I figured we should revisit this a little bit.
Retest things and figure out if Google Assistant still actually is the best virtual assistant on a smartphone right, now., Also shout out to Clippy the original virtual assistant, whose ugly Christmas sweater for Microsoft is actually what inspired this one. The MKBHD 8-bit Drip, which you can get wall supplies last., They’re, very limited, but they’re at shop.mkbd.com link below.. But I decided to start with the simple questions.. You know The three things that you ask from an assistant.
The most often, I think, are the weather, timers and facts., So they all do fine. With the weather question, probably the number one query for me: anyway. And then for the most part, they were also the same pretty quick with just asking standard facts, although for some reason they did disagree on the height of one person., But then for timers for timers. For one weird reason, Siri cannot do multiple timers at the same time on the iPhone..
If you have a timer running and ask for a second timer, it asks you every time if you want to replace the first timer., Pretty basic stuff, that I’m not sure why Apple hasn’t fixed yet., Especially because you can set multiple timers at the same time with Siri on a HomePod mini., But anyway I don’t wan na make. You watch a whole bunch of back to back to back questions and answers, because I admit it was kinda boring when I was doing all of that testing. But I’m going to share some examples of what I found with you and then some of the highlights of the testing and the way it answers these questions when you interact with them.. So here we go.
So with all the latest software updates on every assistant. All being asked, the exact same questions asked to do the exact same tasks with the same phrasing and on the same WiFi connections. Most often the fastest. One to answer was Google Assistant or Siri., But but Siri and Bixby in my experience, did have the most instances of like hanging and pausing and not really answering a question.
Kinda like acting like they had a poor internet connection, even though they didn’t. Not sure why They did that. A restart of the phone, helped with the Bixby one. Siri just kinda. Does it randomly not sure why but that’s a real fact., But then, with straight up fact, questions. There is no runaway winner, which I think is a good thing actually..
So if you ask something that’s easily Googleable or on Wikipedia something like how tall is the Taj Mahal, They can all get it. Or if you ask what do whales eat, They all had some type of answer. For me, that was basically the same. Siri I found relies the most heavily on Wikipedia as a source for almost all of its answers.
And then when it does have to go outside of that it just kinda throws up a web search link, often with Wikipedia at The top says, “ Look what I Googled for you.” Now Google Assistant is the most likely to give you a nice visual and slightly more information than you asked. For. Bixby is powered by Google, so I would say it’s the most likely to read what Google assistant reads word for word. And then Alexa is the most likely to throw in some extra information about your latest Amazon order or something random. So facts they can all Do great., Then there is what I’d call the device control category, because these are assistants that are on your smartphones, they’re, smart speakers as well, but on your phone you’d like to be able to help you out with things. While you can’t use your hands.
And for this there was a runaway winner actually two, and that would be Google Assistant and Bixby.. So with the most basic basic stuff, they’re, pretty much all fine.. They can all change their screen brightness, for example, except Alexa., But they can also all open the camera or pretty much any app on your phone with a voice. Command., That’s easy., Setting an alarm is light work.. If you ask it actually to open the app store, they all open their respective app stores and actually Bixby opens the Samsung Galaxy Store, which is kinda cheeky., But when it starts to get more complex, Google and Bixby start to walk away from the others..
So if I ask it to take a selfie, Siri and Alexa will just open the camera, but Bixby and Google actually open the camera, switch to the selfie camera and start a self-timer and actually take a selfie.. If I wan na say play “ Squid game” on Netflix, both Google and Bixby will actually open the Netflix app find the first episode of “ Squid Game” I haven’t seen yet or wherever I left off and start playing. It.
Siri just opens the app and Alexa is lost., If I say start a voice, recording or a voice memo for Siri. Again, Google and Bixby open the voice, recording app and actually start that recording. Siri again just opens the app. And again Alexa is lost..
These voice commands, when they work, are legitimately faster than I would’ve, been able to do it by hand for the most part. And there’s a bunch of other device specific stuff. That Samsung has programmed into Bixby where it can reach into apps and perform specific commands within them.. So if there are apps who use a lot, this can potentially save you. A lot of time. Bixby was also great at this last time. I did it, and also Alexa is unsurprisingly the worst at device control because they aren’t making their own phone.. These aren’t Amazon phones., So the vertical integration’s great with Siri and Google Assistant and Bixby, not with Alexa, not a shocker there..
What might be a little bit of a surprise, though, is conversationalism., Who is the coach of the Phoenix Sons Huh? How tall is he ( soft upbeat, music )? Did he play in the NBA ( soft upbeat, music )? What team did he play for (? Soft upbeat music ), So you can see Siri tapped out after about four questions in a row about the same thing, but Google Assistant is incredible at this.. It’S really really good at remembering the context and the subject of a natural conversation and carrying that on through a bunch of questions in a row.. Where is the Taj Mahal ( soft upbeat, music, )? Okay? How tall is it (, soft upbeat, music )? How many meters is that ( soft upbeat music )? What is it made of ( soft upbeat, music ), See again, Google remembers what we’re talking about.. When is the Weeknd’s birthday, ( soft upbeat, music )? What’S their latest album ( soft upbeat, music )? What’S his real name, ( soft upbeat, music ).
So basically, if you’re asking a bunch of questions in a row or if you have one subject that you want to basically research through the voice assistant or get a bunch of answers on your best bet is definitely Google Assistant. And then one more interesting thing from The crew is that I ask just as far as getting pictures. When you ask for pictures of something like dogs, for example. They can all search the web except Bixby, didn’t.
And Alexa, which is looking for an Amazon Photos app for some reason.. But when you say show me my pictures of dogs, Google actually opens and searches in my own Photos album for my own pictures of dogs.. So I did a bunch of other testing like this with a bunch of other different questions. Different styles of questions follow up questions and things like that and I’ve come to a pretty solid conclusion..
So if you’re wondering which one is the best .