A new virtual assistant application capable of rivalling Siri has arrived on Android devices, Digital Spy revealed.

Sherpa has launched in beta on Google Play as an alternative to Google Now and the latest competitor to Apple's voice navigation tool.

The software is built on the assumption that users would rather utter keywords into their handset, rather than converse with it as they would another human being.

"When we were developing the app the first mistake we made was that you were only able to talk to Sherpa as a person," Sherpa CEO and founder Xabier Uribe-Etxebarria told T3.

"People just don't work as we thought they would, they won't search 'How old is Barack Obama?', they'll actually just want to say what they'd type, which is 'Obama age'."

Sherpa is designed to recognise keywords and group them together instantly to compile rapid search results, which are served up in the form of cards.

The app is fully optimised to understand different accents, includes money transfer features via PayPal integration, and music playback through agreements with record labels.

Sherpa is available to download in beta for free via Google Play.