Topic hub
A voice assistant is an assistant you control by speaking. It listens for a wake word, interprets the request and responds out loud or by acting — playing music, answering questions, setting timers or controlling smart-home devices. The best-known voice assistants are Amazon's Alexa+, Google's Gemini for Home, which replaces Google Assistant, and Apple's Siri.
Since 2025 all three have been rebuilt on large language models, so they follow natural conversation, remember context and complete multi-step tasks instead of matching fixed commands. They run on smart speakers and displays such as Amazon Echo and the Google Home Speaker, on phones, TVs and cars, and on AI glasses such as Ray-Ban Meta. This hub tracks those assistants and devices, with setup guides, comparisons and news.
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Apple
Siri is Apple's voice assistant, introduced with the iPhone 4S in 2011; with iOS 27, released on September 14, 2026, Apple rebuilt it as Siri AI, a conversational assistant with personal context, on-screen awareness and actions inside apps.
Amazon
Alexa+ is Amazon's generative-AI voice assistant, announced on February 26, 2025, that succeeds the original Alexa on Echo devices, Fire TV, the Alexa app and Alexa.com; it is free with Amazon Prime and costs $19.99 a month in the US without Prime.
Amazon
Amazon Echo is Amazon's family of smart speakers and smart displays, including Echo Dot, Echo Studio and Echo Show, built around the Alexa voice assistant and, since 2025, Alexa+.
Google Home Speaker is Google's smart speaker built for Gemini for Home, released on June 25, 2026 at $99.99 in the US; it is Google's first new standalone smart speaker since the Nest Audio in 2020.
Meta
Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2) are camera-equipped AI glasses made by Meta and EssilorLuxottica with the Meta AI assistant built in, released on September 17, 2025 from $379 in the US, with up to eight hours of typical battery life and 3K Ultra HD video.
Learn & compare
A voice assistant is an assistant you control by speaking. It listens for a wake word, interprets your request and responds out loud or by taking an action, such as playing music, setting a timer, answering a question or controlling a smart-home device.
The main voice assistants are Amazon's Alexa+ on Echo speakers and Fire TV, Google's Gemini for Home on Google Nest and Google Home speakers, Apple's Siri on iPhone, HomePod and Apple Watch, and Meta AI on Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta glasses.
Smart speakers listen on the device for their wake word and only send audio to the cloud after they detect it or after you press a button. You can mute the microphones with the speaker's mute button and review or delete voice recordings in the assistant's app.
On a smart speaker, press the microphone mute button. On a phone, turn off the wake word, such as "Hey Siri" or "Hey Google", in the assistant's settings, or disable the assistant entirely from the same menu.
