Soon you’ll be able to make purchases through Google Assistant using just your voice. As Android Police reports, a new Voice Match setting has been discovered in the Assistant’s Payments and Security settings pane — a pretty strong indicator that Google’ Voice Match technology will be its next pathway to hands-free shopping.

According to Android Police, Google has confirmed that the new feature is part of an early but limited pilot — at this juncture it’s limited to restaurant orders and in-app digital purchases through Google Play. It’s not the first time we’ve seen voice-based shopping, of course — the Alexa has allowed users to yell out their shopping lists for a few years now. The difference, however, is that Google’s take is supposedly more secure, relying on its Voice Match tech to help validate the identity of the speaker – useful for home assistant devices that are lacking security features such as fingerprint or facial scanners.

The company amended its privacy policy and other pages to make it clear human workers are listening to recorded conversations and commands to improve the services. “We realized, based on questions raised recently, that we could do a better job specifying that humans sometimes review this content,” a Microsoft spokesperson told Motherboard, which spotted the policy tweaks.

“Our processing of personal data for these purposes includes both automated and manual (human) methods of processing,” the updated policy reads. Before the change, it wasn’t clear from the policy or Skype Translator FAQ that people were listening in — Skype only records voice conversations when translation features are enabled.

The company states on several pages that it uses voice data and recordings to improve speech recognition, translation, intent understanding and more across Microsoft products and services. “This may include transcription of audio recordings by Microsoft employees and vendors, subject to procedures designed to prioritize users’ privacy, including taking steps to de-identify data, requiring non-disclosure agreements with vendors and their employees, and requiring that vendors meet the high privacy standards set out in European law and elsewhere,” according to identical language on the Skype Translator FAQ, Cortana’s support section and a Microsoft privacy page.

While Microsoft allows users to delete audio recordings it makes of them through the privacy dashboard, it could have been more transparent from the outset as to what it was doing with that data. Apple plans to let Siri users opt out of the recordings soon, but it’s unclear whether Microsoft will follow suit.

Heralded as a world first, the collaboration is designed to help patients — such as the elderly and blind — who can’t access the internet through traditional means, which could reduce pressure on the NHS and local GPs. Plus, of course, by linking directly to official and reliable NHS information, users are less likely to stumble upon random medical advice — anyone who’s ever Googled their symptoms knows how much of a minefield that can be.

According to Hamlinz, pro-gamer with TSM Fortnite, he was “blown away” by the way the headset’s microphone sounded, adding that “They made a headset sound like a broadcast mic. That’s just dope.” Working off Logitech’s previous headsets, the new offering has also had a significant design upgrade. Its lightweight design is made from aluminium and steel, and features soft memory foam earpads and a leatherette-wrapped headband, so it’s both durable and comfortable, and perfect for long-haul competition gaming. The headset will hit select retailers this July, and retail for $130.

The results aren’t flawless. Although the system accurately captures the distinctive sound of someone’s voice and is frequently easy to understand, there are times when the synthesizer produces garbled words. It’s still miles better than earlier approaches that didn’t try to replicate the vocal tract, though. Scientists are also testing denser electrodes on the brain interface as well as more sophisticated machine learning, both of which could improve the overall accuracy. This would ideally work with any person, even if they can’t train the system before using it in practice.

That effort could take a while, and there’s no firm roadmap at this stage. The goal, at least, is clear: the researchers want to revive the voices of people with ALS, Parkinson’s and other conditions where speech loss is normally irreversible. If that happens, it could dramatically improve communication for those patients (who may have to use much slower methods today) and help them feel more connected to society.