14 DAY TRIAL // Each major mobile operating system available on the market, Android, iOS and Windows Phone has its own digital personal assistant. Smartphone owners already know we’re referring to Google Now, Siri and Cortana.
Even though Google Now and Cortana are not available worldwide, they can still be used by a large chunk of smartphone owners.
Google, Apple and Microsoft have always been proud of these personal digital assistants, which could also be considered major selling points of the mobile platforms they represent.
Comparisons between these personal digital assistants are incredibly hard to do because each uses its own algorithm and are programmed to do different things.
For example, Cortana has more access to personal data in a phone and is learning user’s habits to offer more personalized results, while Google Now is extremely accurate in answering specific questions. Siri uses Wolfram Alpha as its data source, so as you can see it’s pretty hard to tell which one is better.
However, a research company called Stone Temple Consulting was kind enough to test these three personal digital assistants and publish the results for everyone to see.
Based on exactly 3086 queries made by the researchers, Google Now returned 1795 (58%) results enhanced with custom content, whereas Siri issued 908 (29%) knowledge panels and Cortana only 630 (20%).
"This is a straight up knowledge box comparison, not a personal assistant comparison"
Keep in mind that the study was focused on knowledge boxes, which means the personal digital assistants were tested for specific types of questions, rather than their value as personal assistants.
These queries have been picked by researchers based on the fact that they have a high chance of triggering a knowledge panel.
This is probably one of the reasons that Cortana scored so low and comes third among the best personal digital assistants, according to this knowledge panels test.
When it comes to accuracy, Google Now seems to be king again with 88% accuracy for properly addressing questions, while Siri got it right in 53% of the questions. Cortana was last again with only 40% accuracy.
“Looking at the scores here, one might conclude that Cortana and Siri are genuinely bad based on the scores. However, please bear in mind that this was a knowledge base test.
“The enhanced results returned in both systems had a far higher rate of being at least somewhat helpful, and in Cortana’s case, had a high rate of improving the standard search results. But you still need to click to see what you were really looking for,” says the study.
