Hardly a day goes by that we don't cover virtual assistants. If it's not news about Siri, there's some new development with Alexa, or Cortana or Google Assistant. Perhaps a new player, like Samsung, is wading into the space. Even Android creator Andy Rubin is considering building an assistant of his own. And his company probably isn't the only one that thinks there's room for another AI helper.

With virtual assistants becoming such an integral part of our lives (or at least our tech-news diets), we felt it was time to stop and take stock of everything that's happening here. For one week, we asked five Engadget reporters to live with one of the major assistants: Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa, the Google Assistant, Microsoft's Cortana and Samsung's Bixby. What you'll see on Engadget throughout the week aren't reviews, per se, nor did we endeavor to crown the "best" digital assistant. Not only is that a subjective question but, as it turns out, none of the assistants are as smart or reliable as we'd like.

In the absence of a winner, then, what we have is a state of the union: a picture of where AI helpers stand and where they're headed. Follow our series here. And, at the rate each of these assistants is maturing, don't be surprised if we revisit them sooner than later.

This week Engadget is examining each of the five major virtual assistants, taking stock of how far they've come and how far they still have to go. Find all our coverage here.