Voicebot: the number of Google Assistant Actions in the US reached 4,253 in January 2019, up 2.5X YoY, trailing Amazon, which has touted 56,750 US Alexa skills
Context & Ripple Effects
Voicebot's tracker has charted the skills race since early 2017, when Amazon confirmed its 10K-to-15K climb and counted just 378 Google Home voice apps against it. The catalog then compounded through 25K by December 2017 and 40K by May 2018, when Amazon also switched on in-skill purchases.
The January 2019 count closes that loop: Google's Actions grew 2.5X year-over-year to 4,253 — real momentum off a tiny base — while Alexa ended 2018 at 56,750 US skills, up 120% YoY. The gap is roughly thirteenfold, and both catalogs are still growing.
First-order effects
- Third-party voice developers face a starker platform choice than ever: Alexa offers a catalog an order of magnitude larger plus in-skill purchase monetization, while Google offers a faster-growing but far smaller Action surface.
Second-order effects
- Amazon's head start compounds through discovery and habit — more skills drive more engagement, which attracts more developers — pressuring Google to compete on Assistant distribution across Android rather than on catalog size alone.
Third-order effects
- If raw catalog counts keep mattering less than installed reach and monetization, the contest shifts from who lists more skills to whose assistant becomes the default action layer on devices users already own — a structural advantage Google holds on Android and Amazon holds in the home.
The trend: Voice assistant platforms are settling into an app-store-style land grab where Amazon's first-mover catalog advantage collides with Google's device-distribution advantage.