Voice recognition has been around for decades, but it wasn’t until Apple introduced Siri in 2011 along with its iPhone 4s that voice assistants entered the marketplace. The release of competitive technology from Google and Microsoft in the years following solidified that voice-activated tech was here to stay. The assistants — ever-present on phones, computers, and tablets — helped give directions, send messages, and search the web without major innovation until 2015 when the Amazon Echo was released to all customers...