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> I don't know what Amazon does for AI, I haven't seen anything convincing from them Alexa is easily the best voice assistant, at least in terms of actually un

> I don't know what Amazon does for AI, I haven't seen anything convincing from them Alexa is easily the best voice assistant, at least in terms of actually understanding what is being asked. When it can't help, it's far more often because it can't find a result or because Amazon/the app builder hasn't built Alexa into the product yet (still drives me crazy that asking Alexa to play an HBO show only works with HBO Go, but not HBA Now, for example, but Alexa definitely understands the requests).

aetherson 10y ago
I don't know if Alexa is the "best" voice assistant, but up until Google Home ships (has it yet?) it's the "only" voice assistant in the place that voice assistants actually matter. It'll be interesting to see if Google overtakes the Echo. I'm not a fan of Google's "no apps" approach.
- the_watcher 10y ago
  I agree, I don't know if it's the best. I just know that it recognizes the words I say to it better than any other I have used, oftentimes without needing to speak in the artificially clear voice that most tend to associate with voice control.
- wstrange 10y ago
  It looks like Google will allow app integration with the Google Assistant: https://developers.google.com/actions/ https://developers.google.com/actions/
  - aetherson 10y ago
    Maybe. Of some kind. Starting in December.
- theptip 10y ago
  Here's Tim O'Reilly making the case that Alexa is in a different class (from a UX perspective) than Google or Apple's AI assistants: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-would-alexa-do-tim-o-reilly https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-would-alexa-do-tim-o-rei... I think the point about Alexa's great interactivity coming from having to build for a device with no screen is a strong one. Though I think that the best AI-driven UIs in the future will have to bridge the gap and be able to display content usefully on a screen (or many screens), while also preserving that concept of knowing what the current context is (i.e. "skip" means "skip the track" if I have music playing, but might refer to a different app if I have youtube running).

aetherson 10y ago

I don't know if Alexa is the "best" voice assistant, but up until Google Home ships (has it yet?) it's the "only" voice assistant in the place that voice assistants actually matter. It'll be interesting to see if Google overtakes the Echo. I'm not a fan of Google's "no apps" approach.

the_watcher 10y ago
I agree, I don't know if it's the best. I just know that it recognizes the words I say to it better than any other I have used, oftentimes without needing to speak in the artificially clear voice that most tend to associate with voice control.
wstrange 10y ago
It looks like Google will allow app integration with the Google Assistant: https://developers.google.com/actions/ https://developers.google.com/actions/
- aetherson 10y ago
  Maybe. Of some kind. Starting in December.
theptip 10y ago
Here's Tim O'Reilly making the case that Alexa is in a different class (from a UX perspective) than Google or Apple's AI assistants: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-would-alexa-do-tim-o-reilly https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-would-alexa-do-tim-o-rei... I think the point about Alexa's great interactivity coming from having to build for a device with no screen is a strong one. Though I think that the best AI-driven UIs in the future will have to bridge the gap and be able to display content usefully on a screen (or many screens), while also preserving that concept of knowing what the current context is (i.e. "skip" means "skip the track" if I have music playing, but might refer to a different app if I have youtube running).