The Internet is not spared conflicts and confrontations either, because this is where the major platforms meet. It’s all about power and money. Amazon and Google once again engaged in a competition here. It has long since ceased to be about the attention of the press, but rather about profitability, and at this point the two competitors are in constant competition with each other.
But which market power will make people’s everyday lives easier in the future is still unclear. So far, Amazon is ahead: by the end of 2018, the online shipping giant had sold around 100 million devices with the Alexa voice assistant. Google was just about half that with the Google Assistant.
But the really crucial thing about the voice assistants is the added value. Google is behind Amazon in sales of the Assistant, but it is available on many more devices, most of them on smartphones. In contrast, Alexa is increasingly being built into microwaves, toilets or synthesizers. In terms of usage scenarios, Google came off much better here because the search engine giant has a wide range of services and functions. Users are to be offered orientation, solution suggestions and convenience.
In the future, Google wants to give its artificial assistant more morsels of information to compile individual search results. Nevertheless, there will not be a confrontation between the two giants. The question of whether search engines are designed to make everyday life easier for users or to supplement the technical infrastructure remains dependent on the users.
