When it comes to answering your questions, what would win in an intelligence, voice-activated battle between iPhone's Siri, Android's Google Now and Windows Phone's Cortana? According to one consulting company, Google Now is the smartest option.
Conducted by consulting firm Stone Temple, a team asked 3,000 voice queries to Siri, Google Now and Cortana. The questions asked were required to have a specific answer, including questions like "What's 18 divided by two," "Who invented Facebook," and "What does the fox say?" The search engine assistant only received credit if they answered the question with the exact right answer.
Despite the current iPhone craze, when it comes to answering questions, Google Now was accurate 88 percent of the time. Apple's Siri was the next most intelligent, but only answered 53 percent of its questions correctly. Microsoft's Cortana came in last with a mere 40 percent.
To find what system produced the best results, the researchers focused on only search words. When asking the voice-activated systems "What is the tallest mountain of the world," all three reported Mount Everest correctly, but presented the information in different ways. Siri provided the researchers the height of Mount Everest, Cortana just says "Mount Everest," and Google Now provides a carousel with other mountains that are similar in height.
When asked, "What does the fox say," Siri humorously replied, "You will never know. The secret of the fox is an ancient mystery." However, Google Now and Cortana both provided a response based off of the popular YouTube video.
When it comes to the most intelligent personal assistant, Google Now is the one to look to when you need to phone a friend for some answers. "As of October 4, Google Now has a clear lead in terms of the sheer volume of queries addressed, and more complete accuracy with its queries than either Siri or Cortana," Eric Enge from Stone Temple writes.
It appears that googling for an inquiry is best done by the voice-activated Google Now system, but according to the study, Microsoft could continue to improve its voice-activated assistant by integrating the service more with its search engine.
