By E. Kelly Fitzsimmons (@schnellerkeller), Co-Founder, Hypervoice Consortium

Today we search for facts, concepts and ideas that express our collective reality. In the future, search will be far more personal. The key to this future lies in our voice. And it is to those future search queries Amit Singhal, Google’s Senior Vice President, alluded to when he addressed the 6,000+ attendees at 2013 I/O and declared “the end of search as we know it.”

Ok, Google. Let’s go!

Although we can already use our voice to search on Android, iOS and desktops using Chrome, one of the key enhancements is being able to search by just saying “OK Google” and asking our question. All talk, no button pushing.

Known as hotwording, this new search experience is “pretty much like you would ask a friend,” explained Singhal. “You can sit back, relax, say, ‘Okay Google,’ ask your question, and have Google speak back the answer.”

So it may be easier to use, but accuracy is what really matters. And this is precisely where Google shines.

What makes this search experience dramatically different is that Google is using information it already has on you – thanks to Gmail and your personal search history – to predict what you “mean” by your spoken inquiry.

A highly personal inquiry like “When will my in-laws arrive?” can now be answered accurately. There is no need to further define what you mean by “in-laws.” Google just knows that it’s Sam and Harriet… and yes they are running 30 minutes late, as usual.

This predictive feature is what makes the Google I/O announcement particularly exciting, as it removes a key friction point with other voice command systems. During the I/O demo, Twitter lit up with attendees remarking on how smoothly the demo ran and its apparent accuracy.

Google’s hotwording marks an important evolutionary step towards natural search. Achieving 900 million activations to date, Android is by far the most ubiquitous development platform. If we are going to see a consumer-wide behavioural shift towards using voice command, it will start here.

By Google making it whip simple to talk to our devices instead of talking through them, hotwording marks a critical step in the evolution to voice as a native web object — searchable, shareable and findable. This emerging model, known as hypervoice, moves us beyond using text (e.g., email, chat, search history) for persistent memory but our voice records as well.

Wait, voice records? Yes, in the name of accuracy, Google is keeping a record of your voice searches.

So the real question is: Are we willing to trade our voice for more productive, accurate search results? Questions regarding privacy and security came up during Larry Page’s I/O keynote. It is clear that many of us are still concerned.

To that end, we will vote by using (or not) Google’s hotwording.