Bottom line: Surprisingly enough, iOS users outpace Android users in terms of voice assistant usage across the board. One might expect it to be the other way around considering the sheer number of Android devices in the wild but perhaps fragmentation and the fact that many of them are older models is playing into it.

It's been nearly a decade since Apple released Siri, a voice and virtual assistant that promised to revolutionize our lives through the magic of speech recognition, artificial intelligence and a whole host of other supporting technologies.

Although the start could have been smoother, Apple planted a seed that would eventually lead to a market full of powerful voice and virtual assistants including Amazon's Alexa and the Google Assistant. Adoption has certainly picked up over the past few years but it may not be quite as far along as we are being led to believe.

A recent SUMO Heavy survey of just over 1,000 US adults found that nearly half (46 percent) never use virtual assistants with only 19 percent saying they use one rarely. A full six percent of respondents said they use a voice assistant monthly while 13 percent use weekly and 16 percent do so on a daily basis.

As you might expect, most virtual assistant interaction takes place on a smartphone (49 percent). Smart speakers are the second most popular choice at 18 percent followed by desktops / laptops at 15 percent, in-car infotainment systems at 11 percent and wearables at seven percent.

Lead image credit: Voice assistant soundwave illustration by Kolonko