I use Siri to do the same. Is it an issue of better ASR or NLP that makes the difference for you?

Google assistant is so much better to look up information and understand what you want.

I use Alexa, Siri, and google assistant. And others don't come even close to assistant when it comes to understanding what you mean and the context. Or even understanding what I've said.

You can ask it stuff like "What's the name of the blonde actress from that new tarantino movie" and you will get the result (works on google.com too), then you can ask follow up questions about her.

This also carries over into setting reminders, controlling smart home devices. "Set a timer", "No, you know what, cancel it". It feels like talking to a person. And it sounds more like a person too.

The ONLY reason I use assistant the least of the 3, is the wake word.

Sure, agreed, but GP was saying that (s)he

'use[s] it all the time to set reminders. "Ok Google. At 2 PM next Tuesday remind me to <insert pretty much anything here>".'

I find that Siri is perfectly capable of creating reminders like this (as is Alexa), so wondered about that.

Google Assistant is definitely better about information retrieval (although, yes, the wake phrase is horrible...)

Siri works just fine for setting reminders.

"Siri, remind me to buy milk tomorrow." - "Ok. Calling mom" or some other random action is more typical of siri.

This is a really bad example because I do that one myself a lot and it works perfectly well with siri.

Google assistant is better with more context “give me cycling directions to work, avoid going down Lexington”

Anecdotally that has rarely been the case for me or people I know for simple requests like that. At least in 2019 with devices from the past couple of years