Microsoft’s Cortana scores worst in smart speaker IQ test, Google Home most accurate

Without much of a surprise, the Google Home outperformed all other assistants.

Microsoft corporate vice president Joe Belfiore, of the Operating Systems Group, demonstrates the new Cortana personal assistant during the keynote address of the Build Conference in San Francisco. (AP/Eric Risberg)

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% 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% correctly, scoring the least across all categories.

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