reports that Piper Jaffray has conducted a little study comparing Siri and Google in terms of both query comprehension and response accuracy, and has not surprisingly found that Google bests Siri in each category. In a way this isn’t a fair fight since Siri has to recognize the human voice and speech patterns while Google has to interpret text that’s (presumably) clearly written. At the same time, the results are pretty interesting: the firm found that Google comprehended queries 100% (A+ grade) of the time and gave accurate responses 86% (B grade) of the time while Siri comprehended queries 89% (B+ grade) of the time and gave correct answers 68% (D+ grade) of the time while in a quiet room.When the firm tried testing out Siri on a busy street, it found that quality was further degraded with just 83% comprehension and 62% correct answers. In all Siri was asked 800 questions in quiet conditions, meaning Piper Jaffray had a pretty large sample size to work with. “In order to become a viable mobile search alternative… Siri must match or surpass Google’s accuracy of B+ and move from a grade D to a B or higher,” the company noted in its analysis, while also adding that “with the iOS 6 release in the fall, we expect Siri to improve meaningfully while reducing its reliance on Google from 60% to 48%.”
Siri still can’t match old-fashioned Google search, analyst says
Updated Dec 19th, 2018 8:28PM EST
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Brad Reed has written about technology for over eight years at BGR.com and Network World. Prior to that, he wrote freelance stories for political publications such as AlterNet and the American Prospect. He has a Master's Degree in Business and Economics Journalism from Boston University.
