Voice right now has a tremendous amount of motion behind it with these devices being integrated into every object you can imagine.
Quote from Matthias Keller, chief scientist at Kayak, in an article on PhocusWire this week.
Voice tech in travel, part 1: Brand adoption
It's been said before but it's worth remembering that voice will become the primary way that travelers interact with travel brands in the not too distant future.
It is, in many respects, a return to normality.
The digital revolution allowed people to communicate with one another and service providers via a keyboard (a device that was a more efficient step up from the typewriter, with less correction fluid).
This process was later given some degree of flexibility with the addition of the computer mouse, but still giving the hands something else to do.
Touch screen technology, pretty much where we are now, still keeps the interaction away from the device that is the most natural communication device that humans are fortunate to have: our voices.
Sure, activation and basic interaction with the electronic world using those voices is not particularly new - but the technology to support its growth is finally moving into the mainstream.
Whether we like the idea that it is the giants of the ecommerce world (Amazon, Apple and Google) that are the main interfaces allowing us to do it is a debate that will rage until something else comes along.
In the meantime, their respective devices and software will be the methods by which voice will shift into the travel industry.
Some of the results are clunky at the moment and we can all laugh at how bizarre it feels to be talking to a object in the corner of the kitchen.
But this will change - it will feel natural doing so, and how inherent desire to make life more efficient (using our voices instead of hands) will inevitably ensure that we look back amusingly on those days when, for example, we had to spend time fiddling with drop down boxes and calendars on flight or hotel searches.
Naysayers watch out. It is happening and it will be the biggest development in digital travel since the smartphone.