Siri vs Google Assistant vs Cortana vs Alexa: battle of the AI assistants

You can't have failed to notice the rise of the AI-powered assistants on phones, from Siri to Google Assistant to Cortana... and there are apparently more on the way in the near future. These apps offer a lot of the same features, though there are some differences too. Below we've taken four of the most well-known digital assistants of the moment and put them through their paces to see where their strengths and weaknesses lie, and to see whether some offer a better level of assistance than others. Apple was the first to put a voice-controlled assistant on a phone and Siri has grown from being a basic interface to your iPhone's functions to something much smarter and astute - and of course it's found its way to macOS now as well. Siri's still happier answering general questions it can look up on the internet rather than anything personal or specific, due in part to Apple's determination to put user privacy first (which means not collecting a load of information from your emails or your location like Google does) - but it can still bring up messages, calendar entries and so on.