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Google Assistant vs Alexa: What’s the best digital assistant in 2019?

Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa are the two most popular digital assistants around, but which is best in 2019? Our Google Assistant vs Amazon Alexa guide reveals all.

Yes, Google and Amazon are very much at war in 2019, vying for control of your living room, kitchen and (in the least dodgy way possible) bedroom with their respective AI helpers. The big question, then, is which side should you join?
Let’s take a look in some more detail.

Google Assistant vs Alexa – The basics

Let’s start with the real basics to avoid any confusion, since this is an area where several tech-y terms intersect. Google Assistant is the AI-powered software you talk to when using a Google Home speaker, or when you long-press the Home button in recent Android phones. It’s Google’s Siri, if you like.
Alexa is Amazon’s equivalent technology and what you talk to when using an Amazon Echo smart speaker, or a Fire TV remote control.
If you want to dim the lights with a voice command, or get a traffic update, you often have a choice of which assistant to use. Both are supported by a wide range of third-party smart home products and speakers.
Now, let’s dive a little deeper.

Google Assistant vs Alexa – How smart are they?

Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa are getting smarter by the day. However, I find Assistant the more natural of the two to use.
While Alexa has improved recently, with the ability to interpret your questions based on those you’ve already asked, right now Assistant knows more thanks to Google owning the internet search space for what seems like forever. Questions to Assistant are less likely to be met with a, “Sorry, I don’t know that one” response, which can bring an abrupt end to the illusion you’re dealing with something intelligent.
For example, Google Assistant doesn’t fail when asked, “When are UK taxes due?”, but Alexa does. Similarly, say “I don’t like this one”, when playing a Spotify song and Assistant will skip to another track. Alexa, on the other hand, tells you: “Thumbs up and down are not supported on Spotify”. Thanks, that’s real handy!
If you’re after a digital helper such as those that feature in popular sci-fi films, Google Assistant is clearly ahead at present.
However, Alexa is ahead in a trite but – unfortunately – important way. Alexa’s ‘wake word’, which is what you say to make a smart speaker start listening, is less of a mouthful than Google’s. “Alexa” is simply easier to say than “OK, Google”, which is a vowel salad.

Google Assistant vs Alexa – Which does more?

Alexa has a greater breadth of abilities thanks to ‘skills’. These are effectively apps for your smart speaker that let you do more with your device than it’s capable of out of the box.
Particularly useful are recipe ‘books’ and guided meditations, or you can play radio stations with Radioplayer. There are tens of thousands of these skills, some very specific. Multiple Skills are available just to let you know the value of resistors by their markings, to give one example of how niche things can get. Other skills allow you to voice control your smart home equipment, robot vac, or Plex setup.

Google Assistant vs Alexa – Exclusive features

Each side also has a few special features worth considering. For Google Assistant, Chromecast lets you take media from your phone and fire it over to your TV. Chromecast is a low-cost media dongle that plugs into a TV’s HDMI port. There’s also one for audio, called Chromecast Audio.
This is great if you want to turn your old, but still great-sounding, ‘non smart’ hi-fi system into a smart home-controlled system. Chromecast doesn’t have a full interface of its own, though – it’s just a middle-man that bridges old tech with new.

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