Is AI listening through your phone's microphone?

Voice assistants only listen when they detect a wake word like 'Hey Siri' or 'OK Google' — they're not recording your general conversations. However, your microphone needs to be on for them to hear that wake word. You can turn off voice assistant access to your microphone in privacy settings if you don't want it listening at all.

Your phone's microphone doesn't record everything all the time — that would drain your battery and use massive amounts of data. Voice assistants like Siri and Google Assistant only activate when they hear a wake word. However, the microphone is listening for that wake word, so technically the device is 'listening' at a low level. You can completely disable this in your privacy settings if you want the microphone to only work when you explicitly use an app.