Microsoft and Google are gearing up to challenge Amazon's Alexa

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Microsoft and Google are gearing up to challenge Amazon in the smart speaker voice assistant space in 2018.

While Amazon’s Alexa controls the lion’s share of the smart speaker voice assistant space this year — Alexa runs on 68% of the smart speakers sold so far in 2017 in the US — its dominance likely stems in part from its competitors’ late entrance into the smart speaker space and their lack of a robust developer ecosystem to build skills, or voice-based apps.

The number of skills voice assistant users have access to is one key indicator of growth in the burgeoning voice computing space; the more skills available on a platform, the more useful that platform can be for its consumers. And more skills across a wider variety of tasks can make a voice platform like Alexa more appealing than rivals.

While Alexa’s 25,000 skills put it far ahead of its competitors, Microsoft and Google are seeing incremental improvements that could impact Alexa’s growth next year:

• Microsoft’s voice assistant Cortana is picking up steam after a late entry into the smart speaker space. Microsoft’s voice assistant Cortana passed 174 skills as of October, according to Voicebot.AI. While this isn’t a lot compared with the volume of skills available for Alexa or even Google Assistant, the figure represents 160% growth for the number of Cortana skills in a three-month period (see chart, below). The uptick in new skills is largely due to the new availability of Cortana-imbued speakers, and the release of Microsoft’s skills developer platform. Microsoft released its first Cortana-enabled smart speaker, called Invoke, in October 2017, and in May, it announced a partnership with HP to begin developing another Cortana speaker. Microsoft also rolled out the Cortana Skills Kit in May, which enables third-party developers to easily build Cortana skills using the framework.
• Google’s skills library isn’t much better than Microsoft’s, but the company’s massive data sets, Android developer community, and localized language support efforts serve as distinct advantages that will help Google Assistant catch up to Alexa. While Google Assistant lags behind Alexa in terms of the number of voice apps — it has 468 voice apps, up 54% from the 304 voice apps in May — Google Assistant is six times more likely to answer a user’s question than Alexa is, according to a study by 360i. That’s likely because of Google’s Knowledge Graph database, which allows its AI-infused assistant to draw on contextual search data to answer users’ questions across a broader array of topics. Google Assistant is capable of speaking in nine different languages, and by the end of the year, Google plans to roll out voice support for three more. Amazon’s Alexa can speak only three languages. Google’s advantage likely stems from its speech-to-text automated speech recognition (ASR) capabilities that are utilized for Google’s voice search products.
  Despite this recent growth, it’s an uphill battle for Microsoft and Google. Alexa’s first-mover advantage is steep — as of May 2017, Alexa has 2.6 million monthly active users (MAU) in the US compared with Cortana’s 700,000, and Google Assistant runs on just 20% of smart speakers sold in the US so far this year. The market for smart speakers will only get more competitive once Apple enters the connected smart speaker space in earnest; Apple’s Siri has 41 million MAU. Apple’s entrance into a nascent hardware space tends to significantly move the needle, but the company recently delayed the launch of its upcoming HomePod to 2018. As Microsoft and Google grow their skills and speakers in 2018, and Apple steps into the space, Amazon Alexa’s growth could be stymied.

Jessica Smith, research analyst for BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on the voice assistant landscape that:

• Identifies the major changes in technology and user behavior that have created the voice assistant market that exists today.
• Presents the major players in today's market and discusses their major weaknesses and strengths.
• Explores the impact this nascent market poses to other key digital industries.
• Identifies the major hurdles that need to be overcome before intelligent voice assistants will see mass adoption.

- Rayna Hollander

Fonte:http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-google-gear-up-to-challenge-amazon-alexa-2017-12?IR=T&utm_source=Triggermail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=BII%20Daily%202017.12.8&utm_term=BI%20Intelligence%20Daily%20-%20Engaged%2C%20Active%2C%20Passive%2C%20Disengaged

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