Don't have money to buy an iPhone? Go steal, suggests Siri's Russian rival

Yandex CTO Mikhail Parakhin claimed the answers were not programmed in advance

On October 10, Russian tech giant Yandex rolled out Alisa, its first voice assistant for iOS and Android (a computer version is also available, but it's in beta). Alisa was announced back in May 2017, but first gained widespread recognition when Russian President Vladimir Putin was shown the app in September during his official visit of the company’s headquarters.

Since its release, thousands of Russians have been trying Yandex’s answer to Siri, Apple’s own voice assistant. Like Siri, Alisa can perform searches, create itineraries, provide information about the weather or the latest news.

Inevitably, comparing Alisa to Siri was one of the first thing many users did. Putting the two voice assistants to the test, Russian business outlet RBC found out that neither Alisa nor Siri were able to predict any trends in the ruble exchange rate, nor would they give their opinion on the controversial, yet unreleased movie “Matilda.”

TJournal, a Russian tech news website, came up with a more thorough test, starting with asking both Alisa and Siri to tell a joke:

Alisa vs Siri: two voice assistants telling a joke