No. The use of a voice assistant is optional; you can initiate music from the Bose Music app and other sources without using voice control. In countries where the Google Assistant and Alexa are available on the Bose Smart Speaker 500, the option to add voice control can be declined during setup and revisited at any time. You can also remove voice control from the speaker at any time via the settings menu of the Bose Music app. And when the Google Assistant or Alexa is installed, the microphones may be turned off at any time with the “Microphone off” button on the speaker.