Loup Ventures Analyzes Voice Assistants: Google Bests Siri And Alexa, But All Are Improved

Hey Google, who is the best digital assistant?

If you ask your Google Assistant that question, it would be able to immodestly proclaim itself the best — though if it’s being honest, it should give its competitors credit and say they’re pretty good too.

Tech venture capital firm Loup Ventures said its most recent test of the digital assistants found that Google Assistant was able to correctly answer the most questions in a test of the three major platforms.

A Look At The Findings

The test posed 800 questions to each assistant. Alphabet Inc. GOOGL GOOG's Google Assistant was able to correctly answer 93%, while Apple Inc. AAPL's Siri answered 83% and Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN's Alexa got 80% right.

But the firm said each platform showed improvement from its test a year ago, when Google Assistant got 86% correct vs. Siri at 79% and Alexa at 61%.

“Overall, the rate of improvement of these systems continues to surprise us,” Loup Ventures said in a blog post. “We perform this test two times per year and see improvement across each assistant in each category every time.”

Google Assistant correctly understood all 800 questions, while Alexa only misunderstood one question and Siri misunderstood two.

Siri did beat out Google Assistant in the “command” category, proving itself better at following commands to perform phone-related tasks like calling, texting or emailing.

Alexa, which can send voice messages and call other Alexa devices, can’t send texts, emails or initiate a phone call.

Loup Ventures asked local questions, such as the location of the nearest coffee shop; navigation questions; and general information questions, such as when the Twins play next.

It also made commerce requests, such as “order me more paper towels,” and commands like “remind me to call someone.”

Loup Ventures said it has observed trends over time: Google outperforms in information-related questions and Siri handles commands best. Overall, there have been "dramatic improvements on each platform and in each category," the firm said.

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Photo courtesy of Amazon.