Microsoft's Cortana scores worst in most voice assistant categories: Report

Voice assistant-based smart speakers dominated this year. From one-of-the-firsts from Amazon getting better upgrades, some like Microsoft continued to lag.

According to Annual Smart Speaker IQ Test, Google Home, Apple HomePod, Amazon Echo, and Harman Kardon Invoke that uses Microsoft's voice assistant, were judged based on the same set of 800 questions to determine whether it understands the question and whether it can respond it the right way.

Without much of a surprise, the Google Home outperformed all other assistants by answering 88 percent correctly and understanding all of the 800 questions across categories including Local, Commerce, Navigation, Information, and Command. However, Microsoft's Cortana powering the Invoke misunderstood five questions and answered only 63 percent correctly, scoring the least across all categories.

Apple's Siri came close second with 74.6 percent accuracy in answering and 99.6 percent in understanding the queries. Amazon's Alexa stood third with 72.5 percent in accuracy and 99 percent in understanding.

The test also gauged how people are using the smart speakers. The results found out that the number one reason for using smart speaker is to listen to music. This is followed by searching for real-time information like weather, and factual information such as history.