Are smart speakers still popular?

Smart speakers are still widely owned, but they are no longer spreading. Two recent U.S. measurements agree on about one adult in three. Two likely reasons for the plateau are public speech and interruptions, and the devices still suit private, everyday use. Our guide to the future of typing covers the wider question of voice as a way to work.

Ownership is about one in three U.S. adults and has barely moved

In a survey of U.S. adults conducted February 17 to 23, 2026, Pew Research Center found that 35 percent said they have a smart speaker. The same chart shows smaller shares for other smart devices, including a smart doorbell at 18 percent and a robot vacuum at 13 percent ¹. The survey counts owners, not devices sold, and it covers devices that use AI.

The longer trend is flat. Edison Research reported U.S. ownership rising only from 33 percent in 2021 to 35 percent in 2025, a figure its publisher describes as a plateau ². The two surveys use different methods, so the matching 35 percent figures should be read as agreement, not as one number confirmed twice.

Talking in shared spaces is awkward, which may limit growth

Two reasons may explain the plateau, though no single study measures how much each one contributes. The first is that talking is public. A 2018 workshop paper expected users to be more self-conscious speaking their requests than typing them discreetly ³. A speaker in a shared room is heard by everyone there, which limits where it can be used.

The second is that a spoken request is slow to correct. Recognizers decide when you have finished, and they can cut you off. In a 2023 study of people who stutter, 61 percent of those familiar with voice assistants named being cut off before finishing as a reason they used them less often ⁴. Because the study concerns people who stutter, its 61 percent is not a rate for every household.

Older adults in one study wanted to keep their speakers

Ownership is not the whole story. In a three-month study of 39 adults aged 65 to 85 in subsidized housing, 28 of them, or 72 percent, wanted to keep using their smart speaker voice assistant after the study ended ⁵. That sample is small and it comes from one housing setting, so it shows that the devices can be valued, not how common that view is.

Our reading is that smart speakers work best for short commands in private rooms: timers, music, reminders and questions. They are a weaker fit for long dictation, where the speaker has to talk for minutes and then correct what was heard.

It depends on your home, your habits and your privacy comfort

The answer depends on three things.

The wake-up finding matters for privacy decisions. Frequent accidental wake-ups are a reason to check your device's privacy settings, not proof that it is always listening.

What to do with a smart speaker today

If you already own one, use it for the tasks it does well and keep long writing on a keyboard or a dictation app. If you are deciding whether to buy one for work, treat it as a supplement, not a replacement for a typed document. For drafting by voice, a dictation app that runs on your computer puts the text on a screen where you can review and edit it. Yap, which we make, is one such app for Mac and Windows.

To see how voice assistants differ from dictation, read voice assistants vs dictation. For the terms, see the voice assistant entry. For the broader argument, see will voice replace keyboards, and for what happens when you can only talk, see what is silent speech.