I just watched a load of videos about it (didn't know it was out, the only one I was aware of was Samsung's S-Voice thing). I think you need to qualify "surpassed", but my take was that it was much, much, faster in a lot of instances but a lot of the time it was not determining context but doing a web search.
It creates the impression of doing the same thing but the context is, I think, being derived largely from Google's web search backend (which already knows what I mean when I type "NY Giants scores"). It may be that this is a sustainable path for Google. Apple has to work out what you mean before it ties you into a solution. Largely Google Now didn't seem to be doing that. (Not criticising one or the other for that.)
It creates the impression of doing the same thing but the context is, I think, being derived largely from Google's web search backend (which already knows what I mean when I type "NY Giants scores"). It may be that this is a sustainable path for Google. Apple has to work out what you mean before it ties you into a solution. Largely Google Now didn't seem to be doing that. (Not criticising one or the other for that.)