Android users notice a drop in Google Assistant performance

Reddit subscribers have noticed that Google Assistant has gotten slower and “degraded” over time

As a Reddit subscriber named “bazbae” noted earlier this year, “Google Assistant has gotten weaker over time, and even basic uses (e.g. setting alarms/timers/playing music) seem to have gotten so buggy and incoherent. It’s disappointing, it was so good to begin with.” Other Reddit posts include statements like “It (Google Assistant) is much worse than it was before” and “The assistant has degraded over time.” And there’s this: “The Assistant on all my Google devices is bad. My P7 Pro, Nest Hub, Pixel Tablet, Nest Mini… everything is bad.”

Google Assistant is in decline, many Android and Pixel users say

Some complain that Google Assistant no longer understands what question they’re asking the Assistant to answer or what task they’re asking the Assistant to perform. Check out this Reddit post: “I swear Google Assistant has gotten so stupid in the last couple weeks. It can’t understand basic sentences unless I talk like a robot straight into the mic, or it ignores me directly Or when I yell NEXT to my Google Home, it plays the next YouTube video on my phone instead of the next song on the speaker. WTF??? It’s never happened before and little things like this just got so annoying.”

Siri directs users to the web to get their answers too many times

Does this mean that Siri is becoming a better assistant than Google? No. Siri has a lot of problems of its own, including its proclivity for answering most questions by saying, “I found this on the web. Take a look” instead of simply stating or revealing the answer you’re looking for on the display.

With artificial intelligence there is the possibility of receiving completely made-up answers and the chatbots sometimes “hallucinate”. If Google is degrading the Assistant with plans to replace it with Bard, that could give Apple an opportunity to improve Siri and bring its virtual digital assistant to the level many believe it should be.

Digital assistants have become so important to so many smartphone users that improvements need to be made to all mobile platforms and all assistants. And we’re not necessarily convinced that using AI chatbots is the answer. There are still some things digital assistants do that AI might not get better at, like setting alarms and timers, repeating sports scores, showing the weather, and converting currencies.