Comparing Various Voice-Based Assistants

Although we have already discussed and compared various voice-based assistants to some extent in Chapter 1, What is Alexa?, in this section we will limit our discussion to voice-enabled speakers that host these assistants.

As of 2018, there are only a few major players in the voice-enabled speaker market (source: voicebot.ai), namely Amazon, which holds the lion's share of 52%, then Google Home, standing at 32%, Apple's HomePod at 12%, and the rest of the market is divided between several other players, as depicted in the following pie chart:

Figure 7.4: Alexa Skills – distribution of smart speaker market

We will cover three of the major players in this section; Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Apple HomePod.

Amazon Echo

Introduced in November 2014, the Echo series of smart speakers by Amazon had the first mover's advantage in the voice-computing market, which enabled it to grab the lion's share of 70% of the complete market. But that is not the only thing...