The world of AI – controlled search assistants in Electronic Gadgets would definitely not be unknown to many. The Siri in Apple iPhones, Cortana in Microsoft Windows, Alexa in Amazon Echo devices, the Google Assistant which was only introduced last year with the launch of Google Pixel, and the newest kid on the block- the Bixby Assistant from Samsung, launched in the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+. These are just the major ones produced by the big companies in an attempt to woo their consumers.
Siri never had a competition for a short period of time, but with the launch of Amazon Alexa alongside the Echo Smart Speaker in November 2014, there was a prediction that Siri won’t be the best voice assistant forever. Then in January 2015 came Microsoft with its assistant service Cortana launched with Windows 10. While they are 3 similar software, their applications were on different types of devices, so there wasn’t much debate. However, things heated up when Google came up with its Google Assistant on the Pixel Smartphones. From the start, it was very obvious that given the amount of information and intelligence google could get through its globally well- known search engine, their own Personal Assistant software could crush the competition. And that’s how it was, Google increased the spread of the feature, and later introduced it to many devices which had Android 6.0 and over. Now when the stage was well set for comparisons, Samsung joined the game with its own personal assistant in the Samsung Galaxy S8, the Bixby.
Now the key reason for comparison is that all of these Softwares can now be used on a Smartphone as well, and the comparison here would be between the newest of them all, the Google Assistant and the Bixby, as both of them are less than a year old. Talking about Bixby, it was initially launched in a very half- baked fashion with very important features such as the use and understanding of Voice missing. However, the Bixby Voice feature has been rolled out in South Korea and the US this month and would be present on every Galaxy S8 devices worldwide by the end of this year. Then comes the Google Assistant, which took over and nearly beat every other voice assistant in terms of features and usability soon after launch.
When talking about the use of personal voice assistants on a smartphone, Google and Samsung are very close competitors. This is because until now, Cortana and Alexa’s services haven’t gone too deep into the Android Ecosystem, and Samsung also has another advantage of using their own UI in the Galaxy smartphones, because of which the integration can be much more better.
The question here is, can Bixby surpass the Google Assistant? Well, it isn’t a very difficult question indeed. Reasons? Here’s why.
Why Google Assistant is better than Bixby
While Samsung can integrate the Bixby service very well with its Experience UI in Android Smartphones, the same advantage also goes to Google Assistant, in fact, Google maintains the whole Android Operating System, so the capability of integration is much more for Google than Samsung.
Samsung has tried to be a little too intrusive with the Bixby service. It has a dedicated button for its usage on the Galaxy S8, but that’s not the problem. The problem is the fact that the button can not be used for anything else except that purpose.
While the Bixby service, as it is, is all pleasant and good, it is simply not comparable with the Google Assistant in terms of features and especially the Voice recognition.
The only way Bixby could be profitable for Samsung is if people like it so much that it becomes an important reason for buying Samsung Devices. Until now, it hasn’t been so, and it also faces stiff Competition from Google Pixel, which plans to introduce some features to the Assistant which would be exclusive to the Pixel series.
Why Bixby can beat the Google Assistant
While Bixby has less access to the Android Software compared to Google, it certainly has a great degree of access on its own hardware devices, which are much larger in number than Google. It is to be noted that Samsung also has a wide range of electronic devices such as Refrigerators, TV’s, Monitors, Microwaves and Cameras under its Command, a deep integration of Bixby into all of Samsung’s devices might make it much more valuable, and more preferable than Google.
Almost the same reason, that Samsung’s electronic devices are much more in comparison to Google. And if Samsung starts to stop using Google’s software and implements its own features across all of its devices, that would be a threat to Google, not a huge threat, but still big enough to make them concerned.
Well, that covers all the aspects of this comparison. The conclusion here is that as of now, the Google Assistant is much better than Google. But the couple of advantages Bixby has could still become a great concern for Google.
