Android users note a decline in Google Assistant’s performance

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

As a Reddit subscriber named “bazbae” noted earlier this year, “Google Assistant has become increasingly nerfed over time, and even the basic uses (e.g. setting alarms/timers/playing music) seem to have become so buggy and inconsistent. It’s disappointing, it was so good back at the beginning.” Other Reddit posts include statements such as, “It (Google Assistant) is so much worse than it used to be,” and, “Assistant has degraded over time.” And there is this one, “Assistant across all my Google devices has gotten worse. My P7 Pro, Nest Hub, Pixel Tablet, Nest Mini…it’s all bad.”

Google Assistant is on the decline many Android and Pixel users say

Some complain that Google Assistant no longer understands what question they are asking the Assistant to answer, or what task they are asking the Assistant to perform. Check out this Reddit post: “I swear Google Assistant has become so dumb the past couple weeks. It can’t understand basic sentences unless I talk like a robot right into the mic, or it straight-up ignores me. 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??? This never happened before and little things like this have gotten 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 many issues of its own including its propensity to answer most questions by saying, “I found this on the web. Check it out” instead of simply stating or revealing the answer that you’re looking for on the display.

With AI, there is the possibility of receiving responses that are completely made up and chatbots do “hallucinate” at times. If Google is degrading Assistant with plans to replace it with Bard, this might give Apple the opportunity to improve Siri and take its virtual digital assistant to the level that many believe it should be at.

Digital assistants have become so important for so many smartphone users that improvements for all mobile platforms and all assistants need to happen. And we’re not necessarily convinced that using AI chatbots is the answer. There are still some things that digital assistants do that AI might not improve on such as setting alarms and timers, repeating sports scores, the weather, and converting currencies.