Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

AI-powered personal assistant apps are spreading in certain parts of the market while others take a downward turn.

While Apple’s Siri is still the top-ranking personal app based on the number of monthly users, it has dropped 15%, losing 7 million monthly users from a year ago, based on a new report.

Samsung is in a similar situation, losing nearly 2 million users of its S Voice over the same period.

Amazon’s Alexa usage has increased 325% from last year, though from a relative small base. It’s now being used by 3 million people and its regular usage is steady.

Microsoft’s Cortana also is coming on strong, increasing 350% in monthly users, to 1 million. Cortana users also seem to use it a lot, since it has the highest rating of percentage of users returning to the service day after day.

If you happen to live in one of the six million US homes that have so far purchased an Amazon Echo, you may think Alexa is just a voice emanating from a cylindrical speaker that knows a couple of tricks. It plays the Beatles on command. It can order more toilet paper. It has jokes, some of which are even kind of funny.

In fact, that’s only the start. Just as Apple taught us that a small portable phone could be a more powerful computing method than our lumbering desktops, Amazon is introducing us to a new computing interface — a voice devoid of a screen—that will eventually grow to be more ubiquitous and more useful than our smartphones.

Forget the onerous process of pulling your Pixel or iPhone from your pocket, unlocking it, opening apps, and tapping your desires onto a screen. (Ugh!) Soon, you’ll speak your wants into the air — anywhere — and a woman’s warm voice with a mid-Atlantic accent will talk back to you, ready to fulfill your commands....