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Apple's Siri ties with Google Assistant for most-used voice assistant

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A Microsoft study suggests that Apple's Siri is on par with Google Assistant for worldwide usage, despite the latter being available on a wider range of devices.

Both voice assistants ranked at 36 percent in a whitepaper based on two online surveys. The first ran from March to June 2018, considering over 2,000 responses in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, and India. The second was U.S.-only, but tapped some 5,000 people in February 2019.

Amazon Alexa managed second place in the study at 25 percent, followed by 19 percent for Microsoft's Cortana. Few speakers support Cortana, but the assistant is built into anything with Windows 10.

The predominance of Siri and Google Assistant is due to their native presence on smartphones. Alexa is the commanding player in the world of smartspeakers, but has relatively little footprint on phones — people typically have to install the Alexa app on their own.

Privacy is the overriding concern most people have with AI assistants, Microsoft noted. In overlapping figures, 52 percent of respondents said they felt their personal data was insecure, and 41 percent worried that speakers were actively listening and recording. 36 percent said they didn't want personal data being used, and 31 percent believed their information isn't being kept private.

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Apple has held privacy as a key selling point of its devices, including the HomePod. The product managed just 1.6 percent of the global smartspeaker market in the December quarter however, likely held back by its pricetag. Until this month a single HomePod was $349 from Apple, and it's still $299 — that compares against $49 entry points for Amazon and Google. A rumored low-cost HomePod model has yet to surface.



30 Comments

frantisek 12 Years · 760 comments

That clearly shows much higher usage on iPhone/iOS as android installed base is much bigger then iOS.

5 Likes · 0 Dislikes
Folio 8 Years · 698 comments

Smells fishy to me, albeit just based on this snippet. That Alexa would generate 25 percent based on speakers alone, compared to ubiquity of smart phones...And just so happens Cortana gets nearly 20 percent. Yeah, right.

1 Like · 0 Dislikes
lkrupp 20 Years · 10521 comments

Folio said:
Smells fishy to me, albeit just based on this snippet. That Alexa would generate 25 percent based on speakers alone, compared to ubiquity of smart phones...And just so happens Cortana gets nearly 20 percent. Yeah, right.

Anything that goes against one’s bias always smells fishy doesn’t it. Have we become so cynical that we no longer believe in ANY research? How does one go through life not believing anything and seeing conspiracies surrounding everything? No wonder science is under attack

5 Likes · 0 Dislikes
gatorguy 14 Years · 24661 comments

frantisek said:
That clearly shows much higher usage on iPhone/iOS as android installed base is much bigger then iOS.

Not in the US. AFAICT not in Australia either. It was only February of this year when the majority of Indian languages were finally supported by Assistant too. The survey was not a worldwide one, fairly country specific, so it doesn't demonstrate what you are assuming it does.

Not sure what Microsoft's intent was with the survey, and with Cortana so prevalent the result seem somewhat suspect to me anyway. 

spice-boy 9 Years · 1450 comments

so each side has 6 users?

2 Likes · 0 Dislikes