Choosing a Virtual Assistant

The term ‘virtual assistant’ can mean a couple of different things. Assuming we aren’t talking about the occupation, the ‘virtual’ part of the term means that the assistant in question is a piece of software, and is only accessible through some digital interface. Most of these virtual assistant programs are smart enough to earn the title of being an artificial intelligence (AI). 

One of the most impressive achievements of AI development is natural language processing, or NLP. NLP means that virtual assistants can interpret speech and text that do not follow specific, pre-set rules, as is required by most fields of computer science. Thus people who use different accents, slang, or sentence constructions can all talk to a virtual assistant in an easy, natural way. 

Virtual assistants come in a number of different forms. Websites with automated help forums, car radios that let you answer a phone call with your voice, and helpers like Siri and Cortana are all different types of virtual assistants. Though this article will focus mainly on the virtual assistants used in smart speakers. 

Smart speakers are, in some ways, the purest form of a virtual assistant. Besides playing the speaker with your phone over bluetooth, almost everything a smart speaker can do has to be accessed by talking and listening to it. And the things themselves even look futuristic. Smart speakers are often just cylinders or gently curved boxes colored black or light gray. Their simple, minimalist design makes them seem like something you’d find on a spaceship. 

While many people only ever ask their smart speakers to play music and answer basic questions about the weather, they can be used for so much more. 

Any smart device that you have in your house, whether it’s a door lock, refrigerator, keychain, thermostat, security system, or even your car, can be linked to your smart speaker, and controlled by your voice. They can also be used to shop, set reminders, send texts and make calls. 

Even once you’ve been convinced to invest in a virtual assistant or smart speaker, choosing which one you want to buy can be a challenge. Price, size, sound quality, and how easy it will be to integrate are all important considerations. 

Integration

One of the most important things to consider when buying a smart speaker is its potential to integrate with the other smart devices in your home. Even if a speaker is the only smart home device you own, how well it can work with your phone’s operating system is still a major factor. 

What really matters when discussing integration is not so much the physical speaker, but the virtual assistant that it uses. A lot of speaker brands can now support several different assistants from different companies, but many are still limited to a single one, so you’ll want to make sure you choose the right one before you buy.

The three most popular virtual assistants are Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri, owned by Amazon, Google, and Apple, respectively. They are similar in a lot of ways, and can all do the most basic functions, such as playing music or answering simple questions. But their willingness to connect with the other tech in your home does set them apart.

Apple products are known for not always playing well with tech made by other companies, and their smart speakers are no exception. Even playing music with Siri requires you to have an apple music account. 

If you already have an iPhone, and plan on getting Apple branded smart home appliances, then a speaker using Siri (usually an Apple HomePod) will be an excellent fit for you. Apple products can be connected to your home’s IoT network by simply scanning a code on the new device. However, if you’re not already in Apple’s ecosystem, a Siri speaker will take a lot more work to use to its fullest potential.

Alexa and Google assistant are both more accommodating than Siri, though each has their own issues connecting to devices made by other companies. If your home is already full of smart devices, the best advice is to simply research which assistant will be easiest to integrate and then buy that one.

If, on the other hand, you are buying a smart speaker first, it’s important to consider how your choice will influence your future purchasing decisions. Currently, Alexa is compatible with more smart home devices, as Amazon has been ahead of the game of getting third-party device producers to integrate that functionality. But if you’re interested in the Google Assistant, it still won’t be hard to find compatible versions of all the devices you want.

If you’re not planning on buying more IoT devices, integration is not a real issue between the two, but if you are, it’s worth it to look through the products you’re considering and see how well they’d work with each one. 

Features

Besides integration, one of the biggest things people look for in a smart speaker is its range of capabilities and ease of use. Often, the first thing new smart speaker owners do is ask the speaker for increasingly strange things, in increasingly weird ways, being surprised when they can actually comply, and disappointed when they give their brand’s version of “Sorry, I don’t understand.”  

How easily a speaker’s AI can understand what you’re saying, and the fewer specific phrases you have to memorize, the easier the device will be to use. This is where NLP is important. The more advanced an AI’s NLP is, the closer it will be to being able to process speech in the same way humans do. That means that you can ask your speaker for the same thing in a bunch of different ways, using different sentence constructions or synonyms, and it will still be able to do it. 

Google Assistant is usually the agreed upon frontrunner in the where ease-of-conversation is concerned. Smart speakers with Google’s AI installed are better at understanding and answering obscure questions and requests. People report that interacting with Google Assistant is the closest they’ve come with an AI to having a conversation with a real human. 

That’s not to say that the other two brands are difficult to use, just that will be some times when you’ll say something that will confuse Alexa or Siri but make sense to Google Assistant. 

Alexa and Siri are both still very capable virtual assistants. Alexa’s breadth of abilities is significantly expanded by Alexa Skills, an ever growing library of third-party apps that allow Alexa to tell you the amount of gas in your car, choose the best wine pairings, and guide you through an eight minute meditation, just to name a few. And while Siri may not be as good at answering obscure questions, it’s ability to process context-dependent requests, such as follow-up questions, is reported to be a little better than Alexa’s.

So, which one’s the best? 

The answer, you may have guessed, is that it depends on how you’re going to use it. 

Are you an Apple devotee? If you already have a subscription to Apple Music and plan on getting your smart home devices from them as well then getting an Apple Homepod or another Siri equipped smart speaker is probably the way to go.

Do you plan on having the smartest home on the block? If you want to be able to control your doorbell, fridge, and ceiling fan all with your voice than Alexa is gonna be the one for you. Amazon’s position in the consumer goods market means that there are more devices that can be controlled by Alexa than any other virtual assistant.

If you aren’t too worried about linking everything in your house to your speaker, and mostly want something that can play music, set reminders, and play music, then the Google Assistant is gonna be your best bet. Google’s AI has is the easiest to talk to, and knows the most information. It’s not hard to find products that it can connect to, but if you already have a couple IoT devices, you’ll want to check and make sure they’re compatible.