You know what an intelligent virtual assistant is, and you’re familiar with the most popular ones: Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Google’s Google Now.

There are plenty of other virtual assistant apps out there, besides these three. So if you’re looking for a virtual assistant that isn’t Siri, Cortana, or Google Now, here are 5 interesting alternatives.

1. Hound, from the creators of SoundHound

Created by the guys behind the SoundHound music identification app, Hound is a voice-enabled virtual assistant that aims to help you get things done as fast as possible. Just speak naturally to it and it will understand both context and details. You can ask it to bring up information about the weather, make a phone call, send a text message, find a certain address, play music, and more.

"We believe that using voice to interface with devices will become a widespread user behavior if it is fast and delightful," said Keyvan Mohajer, SoundHound Inc.’s Founder and CEO. "Hound delivers a major step-change to both speed and accuracy, while doing something fundamentally different from previous voice technologies by allowing users to speak naturally and ask follow-up questions to further refine, change or complete their results. Once users no longer feel the pain points of typing on small screens and being misunderstood by older voice services, they will fall in love with Hound."

Hound – Main Features

• Natural language – you don’t have to use certain phrases or conform to a robotic, keyword-based way of speaking, because Hound understands natural language.
• Speech-to-Meaning – this proprietary technology combines speech recognition and natural language understanding, enabling Hound to do things faster.
• Context & details – Hound understands multiple variables and retains awareness of the context of what the user is asking. You can give it detailed requests or follow-up questions and it will understand them.
• OK, Hound – use the "OK, Hound” voice command for a completely hands-free experience.

Hound launched this March in the US. It is available for iOS and Android.


2. Evi has an answer to all your questions



Evi’s tagline is "ask me anything." It is a revolutionary artificial intelligence that aims to provide an answer to any question you may have. Using natural language, you can ask it about movies, history, people, books, music, anything you want really. Just ask Evi a question and it will promptly present an answer. It really is as simple as that.



Evi is available for free for iOS, Android, Kindle Fire, and the web. You can give Evi a try by visiting the official Evi website; on the website, you can ask Evi any question you want.


3. Cloe, a text message concierge



I’m hungry, it’s lunch time, and I want to eat something, but I don’t know where to go. So I fire a text to my friend Bob, asking him to recommend a place. I could use an app to see what’s around me, but I don’t want to see a list of nearby restaurants, I just want a recommendation.

Cloe works something like that. When you want to find a place to eat, send Cloe a text. When you want to find a place to work out, send Cloe a text. If you want to take your date someplace and you don’t know where, send Cloe a text. You get it, right?

"Cloe is an expert on 80 categories," says its official description. "She knows where to watch the game, the best tapas spot and also where to find the perfect bottle of wine. Cloe can even find you the perfect place to board your dog!"



Learn more about Cloe by visiting its official website. I’m pointing you towards the website because you have to get Cloe’s number to get started with this text-based assistant, and that’s where you can get it.


4. Sirius, the open-source digital assistant

Developed by Clarity Lab at the University of Michigan, Sirius isn’t meant for the casual user. It’s meant for researchers and serious tech heads who don’t want someone else’s server processing their requests.

"Sirius is an open-source end-to-end standalone intelligent personal assistant (IPA) service," says its official description. "Sirius receives queries in the form of speech or images and returns results in the form of natural language. Sirius implements the core functionalities of an IPA including speech recognition, image matching, natural language processing and a question-and-answer system."



If you think you have what it takes to get started with Sirius, you can get the latest version here.


5. Viv, from the creators of Siri

Dag Kittlaus, who cofounded Siri and left Apple five years ago, has recently unveiled Viv, a cross-platform, next-generation, always-learning AI assistant. While it’s not yet ready for the general public, it’s exciting to think about what the future might bring. Kittlaus predicts that Viv will change the way we interact with not just our phones, but our home appliances, cars, and more.



“Viv is an artificial intelligence platform that enables developers to distribute their products through an intelligent, conversational interface. It’s the simplest way for the world to interact with devices, services and things everywhere. Viv is taught by the world, knows more than it is taught, and learns every day,” says the official Viv website.


Honorable mention – Google Voice Search in Chrome for desktop



If your desktop browser of choice is Firefox or Opera, then you probably don’t know about Google Voice Search in Chrome. Launch Google’s Chrome browser, click the mic, and speak your query. As far as I can tell, it works just as well as Google Now on mobile.