Google and Alexa have to be some of the biggest rivals in the AI war. Both Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s series of home devices have allowed both companies to showcase their technology.
Google’s while more sophisticated was met with a new rival, Alexa, when Apple decided to revamp Siri. All three of these companies are aiming to push the boundaries of AI as we head deeper into 2018. Google’s and Alexa’s massive push to AI had lead other brands to jump in as well beating Siri at its own game.
Both companies have their own intentions, that’s for sure. With the help of AI, both companies are fulfilling what they need to move forward. Amazon, on one hand, uses Alexa to entice customers into buying stuff from Amazon. While Google uses their motive in pushing AI into creating a much richer experience.
Both, Google and Amazon, offer their devices at fairly reasonable prices. Amazon retails their Alexa for $99, while the Amazon Dot retails for under $35. On the other hand, Google offers their Google Home Mini for about as much. Both companies are aiming to enhance the user experience. Google’s goal to enhance the user’s experience through AI has been quite a long time coming. In fact, Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, claims that AI is now the future.
Canalys, a market research firm has just analysed the smart speaker market. According to their reports, both Google and Amazon have a 34% share of the market, followed by Apple’s Siri at 10% market share and various other devices munching the rest of the 21%.
The market research firm believes that this is just the beginning and that they expect the market and appeal for such devices to grow to 100 Million by the end of this year and grow by 225% over the course of the next two years.
For now, the report states that the adoption of such devices has been booming in the US and that it will remain that way for a while. In contrast, rising competitors such and Xiaomi and Alibaba should pave the way for the demand of such devices over in China. Recently, with the launch of MIUI 10 and the Mi 8 family of devices, Xiaomi announced Mi AI, a new AI assistant similar to Google’s Assistant that’s said to take quite a slice of the cake over the coming years.
“Amazon and Google know the power of an ecosystem lock-in and have been engaged in a fierce price war to try and build the largest installed base.
He then further added…
Amazon and Google will now take their devices beyond the smart home and deploy them in a range of new scenarios. Their business development teams are targeting commercial opportunities, such as hotels, offices, gyms and airports, with initiatives such as Amazon’s Alexa for Business and Alexa for Hospitality. These deployments are a major opportunity for the IT channel to develop solutions and provide technical skills and services that customers may lack.” said Canalys’s Research Analyst, Vincent Thielke
Since both Amazon and Google have to play their part in making sure that this technology appeals to as many homes, its also their responsibility to make sure that these devices last for more than a few years so that these devices may find their relevancy in many families.
Hopefully with the push of these types of technologies, this new emerging market would flourish.
