Which Voice Assistant Will Beat Alexa? (Probably Not Cortana)

Alexa set off the voice assistant craze with the original Amazon Echo. Since then, though, it has aggressively encouraged other device makers to incorporate Alexa into their gadgets. If product releases at this year's major electronics shows are any indication, it has largely succeeded.

In reviewing data released by the major voice assistant stewards, Business Insider Intelligence found that Alexa indeed remains far in the lead with 12,000 integrations. That's nearly 2.5 times the number the Google Assistant can claim. Siri and Cortana can claim only rounding errors in comparison.

That said, this doesn't tell the whole tale. For one, at some point, we reach a level of diminishing returns in terms of supported devices, at least for now. And there's not much value in an integration for a product no one is buying. That's why Siri's presence on the iPhone has an outsized influence even though it's on so few products. Also, while Apple doesn't court other device makers to make them Siri endpoints, it does achieve much of what Alexa and Google Assistant can do in terms of device control via HomeKit, which enables Siri control.

Smartphone integration is also a huge advantage for Google Assistant, which is the default voice assistant for Android smartphones, which outnumber all Alexa endpoints combined. As for Cortana, Microsoft—which started late in the game—seems to be refocusing it to be more of an enterprise tool that can, for example, secure transcriptions of meetings. That step back from the consumer space has cleared some room for a level of integration with Alexa.

Amazon Echo (2017) Review