Voice assistant use started to tail off when we were forced to use words in a specific order, and it became clear that they weren’t capable of answering anything other than basic questions. GenAI is promising to change that, with voice assistants that not only understand natural language, but are also capable of looking up answers from a wide variety of sources. The main competition today is between Amazon Alexa+ and Google Gemini for Home.
Choice, to a certain degree, depends on the hardware you’ve got (particularly smart speakers), but even with that in-mind, which system is the best now and shows the best future promise? We’ve reviewed both systems in detail to help you choose.
Google Gemini for Home has started to roll out automatically, with emails offering sign-up coming. You can use the voice assistant on pretty much every speaker and display Google has released in the last seven years: Nest Mini, Nest Audio, both Nest Hub models, and the new Google Home Speaker.
Alexa+ is a different story. It’s still stuck behind an invite-only Early Access program. You can register for this now, but you need to wait until you’re invited. Buy a new smart speaker, such as the Echo Show 11, Echo Studio or Echo Dot Max, and you’ll get an invite earlier.
When Alexa+ has a wider launch, it will be free for Prime customers but $19.99/£19.99 a month for everyone else. Basic Google for Gemini for Home is free, but there are paid-for subscriptions, too. These aren’t directly comparable with Alexa+, as they also include cloud storage and features for cameras.
Google Home Premium Standard ($10/£8 a month or $100/£80 a year) also includes 30 days of video history, intelligent alerts, Gemini Live, and in-app help to create automations. Google Home Premium Advanced ($20/£16 a month or $200/£160 a year) ups video history to 60 days, and adds 24/7 recording for wired products, AI-powered video search and descriptive notifications.
Alexa+ has clearly been built with conversation in mind. It handles follow-ups without flinching, remembers what you’ve told it about your friends and family. For example, tell it that someone is a vegetarian and when you ask for recipe recommendations that include that person, you’ll only get veggie results.
You can shape Alexa+’s personality over time too. Tell it you want shorter answers or to avoid certain words (we didn’t like it’s use of ‘mate’ in the UK), and Alexa+ will adapt and change, getting better the more you use.
Alexa+ is pretty good at answering general questions, such as who starred in a film, if a certain tube line is running, or when’s good to have a BBQ at the weekend.
Alexa+ has been tuned for all of the regions that it’s in. In the UK, for example, it understands the wide regional dialects, responds in a more familiar way, and uses the right units for temperature and measurement.
Google Gemini for Home keeps pace on the basics, and is conversationally good, understanding natural language. It can answer all of the general questions you have, too, in a similar way to Alexa+.
It hasn’t been as well-tuned for different regions, suggesting that we set our thermostat to 72° in the UK, which is super hot if you assume that means Celsius.
Reliability is an issue. Google Gemini For Home kept forgetting that someone was vegetarian until prompted to remember. It can be frustrating to use, too. Asked how many ‘Ms’ there are in the word mammal, it said, “There are three megaseconds in the word mammal.”
When pushed, Gemini can double down on its incoherence. As per the example above, when asked to explain, the response was, “That is a bit of a trick question. Megasecond is a unit of time, not a word related to the spelling of mammal. As we discussed, there are three megaseconds in the word mammal, and a megasecond is exactly one million seconds. Would you like to know more about how time measurements work?”
Winner: Amazon Alexa+
Alexa+ has an out-of-date database of local businesses. Asked to suggest the nearest French restaurant, it picked one that isn’t the closest, and actually closed in 2023. It partly redeems itself with OpenTable integration, so you can book a table using your voice, even telling Alexa+ to look for a slot in your diary. Alexa+ doesn’t support booking restaurants that need card deposits.
Gemini for Home has a much better database of local restaurants, with up-to-date information. It can’t book tables for you, though.
Winner: Google Gemini for Home
Alexa+ pulls ahead here, and by some distance. Upload a PDF or photos (or email them), and Alexa+ can read the information and make sense of it, such as creating calendar entries for the days your school is closed, or a list of items to bring on a trip.
Or, upload your dishwasher manual, and you can query it later, asking Alexa+ how you do something. It’s quite brilliant.
Alexa+ supports Google and Microsoft calendars, but only the free versions, and not work ones.
Google Gemini for Home does the basics fine, but only supports free Google calendars. It can make a calendar entry, check what’s on tomorrow, that sort of thing. But documents? Total dead end. Ask it to read a PDF and it suggested I read the document aloud to it. Not much use on a smart speaker.
Winner: Amazon Alexa+
Alexa+ pulls ahead on smart home control, and works well with fuzzy commands. Say, “It’s cold in here” and the heating kicks in, for example. Alexa+ can perform multiple tasks said in one sentence, and create routines from your voice prompt, either a regular one or a one-time version.
Gemini for Home manages the basics. Chain a couple of simple simultaneous requests, and it’s fine. The cracks show up fast, though. Commands can be slow to implement, and it can’t create routines. It can also get confused. When told it was hot, Gemini turned on AC units in a completely different room.
Winner: Amazon Alexa+
If you want a voice assistant that actually runs your home, Alexa+ is the one to get. It wins on smart home control by a noticeable margin, handles multi-step commands without you having to babysit every instruction, and does genuinely useful things with your calendar and documents rather than just reading them back at you. Add in its conversational follow-ups and real memory, and you’ve got something that feels built for daily life rather than demos.
Google Gemini for Home might be easier to get at the moment, but in all of the important ways it lags behind the competition.
