That makes sense, and my reasoning for Google is they have money and they have users. The way they behave now certainly doesn't scream 'we're going to blow your mind with partnerships,' but I feel like if it was something they sought aggressively it would come somewhat easily. Pure speculation, nothing more. And if they chose to do so, with a superior interaction experience, there's the edge.

What you say appeals to my sense of logic, and I have a habit of buying the product that's cooler to me but the general populous lets it die (dreamcast comes to mind lol). I just don't think anyone should discount the AI here, and Alexa as an AI from the user perspective is not great. It really is almost just a voice controlled app from a use standpoint - if there's something more complex going on there, the user is unaware of it. I've never felt like I was using a virtual assistant with Alexa, ever. If Google can deliver a sense of actual interaction, that's amazing, that's the future to me. Basically for me the winner is the one who makes the AI that I can talk to like the Star Trek computer, and step one there is it has to answer my damn questions.