Alexa vs Google Assistant (Which is Better in 2021??)

Alexa v Assistant: On speaking terms

Voice is recommended as a new computer paradigm, but that will not be the case until we can communicate with our computers naturally as they would a friend. AI needs to feel human - or at least, understand us as human beings - if we choose to communicate with it instead of touching the touch screen or pressing a button.

The good news is - with both the contender from Mountain View and its opponent from Seattle - is that the speaking and listening part of the equation is improving all the time.

Alexa and Assistant have ‘wake words’, which aren’t fully customizable on either of the platforms. You can choose to use OK, Google or Hey Google for Assistant on the fly, while Alexa lets you choose between four wake words from the app - Alexa or Amazon or Echo or Computer.

When it comes to the actual back and forth of conversation, it's extremely hard to pick between the two lets know why.

Google is better with follow-up questions and context when it launched its Continued Conversation feature a couple of years back.

Amazon hit back with Alexa Follow Up mode immediately though. With these modes switched on (optional on both platforms), you need not say the wake word again, you just have to follow up your initial request with a new one.

Alexa is better at understanding context much better.

And my favorite part is if you whisper to Alexa, Alexa will understand that you might have a headache or don't want to wake someone up, so it'll whisper back that's freaking cool. It can even give you contextual answers. So if you want a news report, it'll speak like a newscaster.

And, with the new Echo 4th generation, powered by Amazon’s AZ1 Neural Edge processor, Alexa is about to get a whole lot smarter.

With the AZ1 on board, Alexa will be a lot more conversational. There will be a new, all-neural, speech recognition model that will process speech faster, making Alexa even more responsive.

You can say, "Alexa, join our conversation" and then you'll then be able to wake word and the voice assistants will be able to handle multiple participants in these more natural conversations.

Both Alexa and Assistant are pretty good at voice recognition, the important part is quality of microphone on the device you're barking at will obviously affect that.

It is a close race. You can also set multiple user profiles for both Assistant and Alexa on some supported devices, so they will see who you are talking to and change the return results depending on who is speaking.

Alexa v Assistant: Which is better at actually being an assistant?

the new Echo dot vs Nest mini

Currently the two are winning in different categories: Google Assistant is the best of the information he can provide, while Alexa complains about features and smart home control. It's been this way for some time now, and yet the Helper narrows the gap.

Assistant has a natural advantage here by drawing on Google's powerful information graph, while Amazon still has a lot of work to do. Google has a long history of searches (not sure if you've heard of it, but Google Search is very popular) which makes it a little better when it asks for information

With more services under Google's view, Natural Assistant is firmly entrenched in these than Alexa. For example, if you are a large user of Gmail or Google Calendar you can use your home speaker to tap on all of that. Alexa apparently offers it directly to the Amazon store.

If you're using an Android smartphone, you'll probably have Google Assistant on there too, though this operates a little differently to the one you'll find in the Home speakers.