Watch just about any movie set in the future or a high-tech universe, and you’ll see characters commanding their robotic servants to do their bidding using only the power of their v-oice. In the future, it seems, buttons are for chumps.

Surprisingly, while we don’t have flying cars or that ridiculous looking tiered chess set, voice commands have become a present reality. They may have began as a novelty at first, but they quickly proved their usefulness in real-world scenarios. As voice recognition and natural language processing technology improved, voice command use has increased. We have even created devices that must be interacted with entirely through voice. The future, it appears, is now!

So what does that mean for your business? Firstly, if you intend to generate leads through online search, having a voice search SEO strategy is no longer optional. More than 20% of all mobile searches were performed through voice commands in 2016, and that number has likely risen.

Furthermore, 39 million Americans own a smart speaker device. That number also leaves out the myriad game consoles, computers, and other voice-capable devices on the market.