Hello Google, says Alexa on JBL
The acrimonious tussle between Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa appears to have ended on a JBL speaker
The battle between Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa is legendary. After bickering for several years, the two voice assistants are coming together – thanks to the new additions to the JBL Authentics speaker line-up that Harman has announced and would become available for public playback as early as September 17.
The announcement came at the IFA tech show in Berlin earlier this week. The JBL Authentics series comprising versions 200, 500 and 400 speakers, carry two of the three popular voice services (Siri is feeling loneliness pangs) – a first where users can invoke either Google Assistant or Alexa at any time.
This means “you can ask Alexa to play your “Sounds of the 80s” playlist while your spouse can instruct Google Assistant to stop it, says a post published by The Verge. For the longest time, Google and Amazon voice assistants haven’t played it together with no native YouTube app on Echo Show devices and vice versa.
What changes now that Google and Alexa are friends?
However, there has been a thaw in this acrimonious battle in recent times with the two companies working jointly on the new smart home standards. The two voice assistants coming together would definitely benefit users, though Apple’s HomePods is conspicuously absent from this recent bout of camaraderie.
In a blog post, Amazon spoke at length about what changed. It claimed that customer preferences and habits for the two voice assistants is what drove this collaboration whereby now Google and Amazon’s shared customers are free to use either at any given time. Aaron Rubenson, VP of Alexa says, “customers win when they have choices, whether on which smart home device to bring home or which assistant they want to use.”
Of course, all of it won’t happen just like that. Users would need to download the JBL One app on a smartphone to set up one or both assistants on the new series of speakers. Once enabled, customers could just say “Alexa” or “Hey google” to issue a voice command or access their preferred services on either of the two platforms.
Why the sudden change from Google, Amazon?
For several years, Google has resisted manufacturers besides Sonos to build devices that feature both Google Assistant and Alexa. Probably incensed by this, Amazon created their own set of devices to level things a bit. However, this resulted in poor customer experience in case homes had both gadgets around, something which the two tech giants are now solving.
Of course, Google always held the upper edge as it was shipping its voice assistant as default on all Android smartphones – something that caught the attention of the European Union which initiated an investigation in 2019. As of now, Google Assistant is reportedly available in more than a billion devices worldwide.
It was around the time when antitrust allegations were flying thick and fast that Amazon launched a voice interoperability program that could enable smart speakers, handsets and smart displays to choose from among the existing voice assistants. Google, Samsung and Apple then declined to join but it looks like the search giant is changing tack now.
Universal device commands make it happen
The new range of speakers also sees the introduction of universal device commands (UDC) where customers do not need to recall which service responds to what type of request for music, timers, reminders etc. So, going forward, one could set an alarm using Alexa and then ask Google Assistant to shut it down.
Of course, both companies have taken care not to allow the two assistants to speak with each other. The new range of speakers will automatically change the audio focus at the precise moments so that one voice assistant does not speak over the other. Both companies have been testing UDC for some time now.
One can discount any altruistic motive in this latest joining of hands. Smart speaker sales have been declining for some time now with Q1 shipments dropping 30% for its six quarterly dip with research suggesting that barely half of all customers in the US now use voice search as a daily activity.
While declining sales could be one of the reasons for these joint operations, it is certainly not the only one. Over the years, both companies have missed targets when it comes to revenue generation from voice assistants and this could just be one way that both want to wipe voice assistants off the revenue map in the future.
