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Google Assistant is six times more likely to answer a user’s question than Amazon Alexa is, according to a study by 360i.

Each AI-infused assistant was asked 3,000 questions, of which Google Assistant answered 72%, and Alexa answered only 13%.

As the rapidly burgeoning voice assistant landscape evolves, the initial results suggest that Google could be well-positioned to overtake Amazon in the voice assistant market, despite Amazon's early lead.

The ability to accurately understand and respond to users’ questions will be a key element to the usefulness and usage of a voice assistant. And the vast difference in performance by Google Assistant over Amazon could give it an edge as the voice-first ecosystem continues to expand. Here’s why:

Still, Amazon has established a solid lead over competitors in the connected voice market. The company’s Echo installed-base, large volume of Alexa skills (voice apps), and multitude of partnerships with third-party connected devices, has helped it capture mindshare and carve out a solid segment of the voice assistant market. And Alexa has a ton of room for growth; just 5% of Amazon customers own an Echo, according to Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. For context, 51% have a subscription to Prime, 34% own a Kindle Fire, and 6% own a Fire TV. 

Jessica Smith, research analyst for BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on the voice assistant landscape that:

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Rolls-Royce

The Rolls-Royce Phantom is one of the oldest names in the car business. For nearly 100 years, the Phantom has been a byword for luxury, exclusivity, and world-class engineering.

After remaining dormant for a decade, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars launched the seventh generation Phantom in 2003. It was the first new Rolls-Royce introduced after BMW assumed control of the brand from Volkswagen Group in what was one of the most bizarre business deals in recent memory.

For 13 years, the Phantom VII served Rolls-Royce with distinction as its flagship model while also becoming a catalyst for the brand's recent renaissance. With annual sales topping 4,000 cars, the past few years have been happy times for the rarefied luxury automaker.

Now, there's an all-new Phantom.

On Thursday, Rolls-Royce unveiled the Phantom VIII.

"The Phantom is the pinnacle of the Rolls-Royce brand in its truest sense," CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös told Business Insider in an interview. "It embodies all of the qualities Rolls-Royce is well known for. It starts with the magic carpet ride, the quality, the precision design, and engineering."

"It embodies what (company founder) Sir Henry Royce said, 'Take the best that exists and make it even better,' and that is exactly what the Phantom is in every single detail,"Müller-Ötvös added.

Rolls-Royce is expected to commence customer deliveries of the Phantom VIII in early 2018. The standard wheelbase Phantom starts at around $450,000. However, company data shows Phantom VIII customers are adding around $150,000 in bespoke options to their cars for an average order price of $600,000.

Here's a closer look at Rolls-Royce's new flagship.

Amazon's second-quarter report fell well short of Wall Street's expectations.

The company's earnings missed analysts' forecasts by more than a dollar a share. It also offered a disappointing outlook for the third quarter.

Investors sold the stock on the news. In recent trading after the bell, Amazon's stock was down $29 a share, or nearly 3%, to $1,017.00.

The company reported on Thursday:

The company's sales were boosted by results from its services business, most notably its AWS cloud-computing business. Compared with the year-ago period, AWS' revenue was up 42% to $4.1 billion. Amazon's overall service revenues also rose 42% to $13.2 billion. The company's total revenue grew 25%.

But rapidly rising expenses weighed heavily on Amazon's bottom line. Marketing costs jumped 44% from the second quarter last year to $2.2 billion. Amazon's spending on technology and content jumped 43% to $5.5 billion over the same period. Its fulfillment costs swelled 33% to $5.2 billion. Overall, the company's operating income was down 51% from the second quarter of 2016, to $628 million.

Amazon has been hiring software engineers and sales representatives for its AWS business, Brian Olsavsky, Amazon's chief financial officer, said on a conference call with analysts. It's also been investing in new warehouses, digital video for its streaming video service, and in developing and promoting its Echo smart speaker products, he said. 

Besides increased operating costs, taxes took a toll on the company's results too. Even though Amazon's operating income was down from the same period last year, the amount it set aside for income taxes rose by more than 50%, to $467 million. That provision would give it a tax rate of about 70% for the quarter. It was unclear from the company's report why it set aside so much for taxes.

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My favorite Onion article of all time (from 2010) is U.S. Economy Grinds To Halt As Nation Realizes Money Just A Symbolic, Mutually Shared Illusion. It starts off with some Bernanke brilliance.

“Though raising interest rates is unlikely at the moment, the Fed will of course act appropriately if we…if we…” said Bernanke, who then paused for a moment, looked down at his prepared statement, and shook his head in utter disbelief. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. None of this—this so-called ‘money’—really matters at all.”

“It’s just an illusion,” a wide-eyed Bernanke added as he removed bills from his wallet and slowly spread them out before him. “Just look at it: Meaningless pieces of paper with numbers printed on them. Worthless.”

This is not a new idea. From William Gibson’s book Neuromancer, one of the most important sci-fi books ever which established the idea of cyberspace in 1984.

“Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts… A graphic representation of data abstracted from banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding…”

Back to the Onion article.

“Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) finally shouted out, “Oh my God, he’s right. It’s all a mirage. All of it—the money, our whole economy—it’s all a lie!”

Now, ponder Bitcoin.

“I’ve spent 25 years in this room yelling ‘Buy, buy! Sell, sell!’ and for what?” longtime trader Michael Palermo said. “All I’ve done is move arbitrary designations of wealth from one column to another, wasting my life chasing this unattainable hallucination of wealth. What a cruel cosmic joke,” he added. “I’m going home to hug my daughter.”

Or Ethereum.

“A few U.S. banks have remained open, though most teller windows are unmanned due to a lack of interest in transactions involving mere scraps of paper or, worse, decimal points and computer data signifying mere scraps of paper.”

I just read Kenneth Rogoff’s The Curse of Cash: How Large-Denomination Bills Aid Crime and Tax Evasion and Constrain Monetary Policy. I literally have zero cash in my wallet. On a daily basis, I’m dealing with very large sums of money across multiple companies, but it has completely become a functional abstraction to me.

As I did a fairly sophisticated transaction on my computer yesterday that moved cash into a cybercurrency, I had the phrase “money is a consensual hallucination” echoing in my head. Math and computers are helping reinforce this. And the government is watching.

Also published on Medium.