Whenever Amy Blake’s four-year-old son Oliver wants to listen to songs from his Spotify playlist, he simply says aloud, “Hey Google, play Oliver’s jams” and one of the family’s two Google Home Mini smart speaker devices automatically plays them for him.

At night, her two-year-old daughter Isabel calls out “Good night, Google!” and the devices communicate with the lights in her room to turn them on in her favourite pink hue.

Ever since Blake brought the Google Home Minis home at Christmas, the burger-bun-shaped devices, which are equipped with the artificially intelligent helper Google Assistant, have become an integral part of the family’s daily life.