The current crop of voice assistants
Almost every major tech company believes that the future of interaction between people and their devices will be voice driven. This is why there are so many different “voice assistants” in the market. Here are some of the more prominent players in the market:
Amazon
This list starts with Amazon, as they pioneered the category with the Echo. Their Alexa voice assistant is the most popular on the market and is going to be on several third party products shortly. Because of its lead, Amazon has the largest market share in the space.
Google is probably the best positioned to make a voice assistant that can understand proper spoken English. Their Google Assistant is playing catch up to Alexa and is currently only available on Google Home, Google Allo, and some smartphones. Until Google Assistant is widely available, it will lack the traction to go up against Alexa.
Apple
Siri is a part of the iPhone and some of Apple’s other products. However, it lags behind everyone else in thes pace except Microsoft. There are no announced updates to Siri, although there are rumors of a potential Echo/Google Home competitor.
Samsung
Samsung purchased the latest product from the team that created Siri. The new assistant, which is part of the new Samsung Galaxy S8, is called Bixby. So far not much is known other than the demo videos shown at the launch of the S8. It is unlikely that it will pose a serious threat in the short term.