2011. 2014. 2016. In a matter of nine years, the three major voice assistants—Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Google’s Assistant—were released, reconstructing the ways we incorporate technology into our lives. Although Amazon leads in smart speaker market share and Google and Apple lead in monthly active users in total devices, other notable players such as Microsoft Cortana, Sonos, and Samsung Bixby present real challenges to the mainstream assistants. But even as the competition shakes up, consumers are faced with only a few choices for smart speakers and voice assistants. This, coupled with the scrutiny of alleged monopolistic practices of Apple, Google, and Amazon by regulators in the US and Europe, has forced the tech companies to create a voice world that is friendlier to rising newcomers with programs such as Project Connected Home over IP and the Voice Interoperability Initiative—both of which announced their next steps this week.