Google assistant has been around for quite some time, and has come up with smart speakers only recently, in 2016, while Amazon launched its Echo in 2014. There are 3 variants, Google Home, Google Home Mini and Google Home Max, apart from the regular Google assistant on smartphones. Alexa is present in Amazon Echo devices- Amazon Echo, Amazon Echo Dot, Amazon Eco Plus, Amazon Tap, Amazon Echo Show, Amazon Echo Look and Amazon Echo Spot. However, Alexa is also present in many other devices like smart watches, laptops, TVs, firesticks, smart fridges and even smart toilets. Where compatibility is concerned, Google assistant is compatible with about five thousand devices, but Alexa is compatible with more than twelve thousand devices.

Alexa has a wider reach and offers more integrations from third parties compared to Google Home, and also supports many more IoT devices. On the other hand, Google Home has better and stronger query coverage and can answer a lot more questions than offering a ‘Sorry’ for whatever goes beyond its preset resource limits. Home also has better voice recognition, compared to Alexa. Thanks to its extensive speech processing and natural language processing, Google is capable of understanding various accents, which Alexa is not adept at.

Alexa has more than 30,000 ‘skills’ in its repertoire, which are third party apps, which allow you to interact with platforms like Uber, Ola, Zomato, etc and book cabs, order food, book tickets etc. There are also several Smart Home skills, Game skills, Work Out skills etc, which make Alexa very popular. Google offers ‘actions’ too, but they are far less in number, and less diverse.

Another interesting comparison is that when you need help from your smart assistant, calling ‘Alexa’ sounds more natural than ‘Ok, Google’!

In conclusion, it must be added that Alexa has been around for longer in this sphere, and has the early starter’s advantage, but Google is definitely not going to stay far behind and will be on top of the game very soon.

By Anisha Kashwani