Why Your Keyboard Isn't Going Anywhere

Microsoft just put a Copilot key on every new Windows keyboard. They also added "Hey Copilot" voice activation in November. So they're hedging their bets. And honestly? They're right to.

We've been hearing about the death of the keyboard since Siri launched in 2011. Fourteen years later, here we are. Still typing. Still getting RSI. Still ignoring the fact that we can speak three times faster than we can type. The tech is finally good enough. Whisper and GPT-4o hit 95% accuracy. That's actually usable now. So why aren't we all dictating our emails?

The answer is sitting right next to you. Probably within earshot.

The open plan problem nobody wants to talk about

Here's the thing. Voice control works brilliantly. In isolation. In your home office. In a private room with a door that closes.

It does not work when Dave from accounts is on a Teams call, Sarah's keyboard is clicking away, and someone's eating crisps. The average open plan office is basically a privacy void. Everything you say, everyone hears. That confidential HR email? The salary negotiation? The client complaint? You're not dictating that where Janet can overhear.

And it gets worse. As more people do video calls in open offices, everyone raises their voices. Which makes everyone else raise theirs. It's an arms race of noise, and the keyboard stays silent through all of it.

The numbers actually work in voice's favour

Let's be fair about the technology. The case for voice is strong.

Gartner predicted that 25% of employee interactions with applications would be voice-based by 2025, up from 3% in 2019. That's more than 800% growth. The global voice assistant market went from £4.5 billion in 2023 to a projected £37 billion by 2032. And the physical keyboard market? Declining 0.4% this year.

Average typing speed sits around 40 words per minute. Average speaking speed? 150 words per minute. One military officer reportedly cut report writing from three hours to 45 minutes using dictation. We're talking about serious productivity gains here.

And then there's RSI. 450,000 UK workers have upper limb repetitive strain injuries. Five million working days lost every year. Voice dictation doesn't just save time. For some people, it saves their ability to work at all.

What actually happens when you try it

The reality is messier than the marketing. Yes, raw dictation speed hits 120-150 words per minute. But effective speed after corrections drops to 70-90 words per minute. Still faster than typing. But not the big leap the headlines promise.

Programming? Forget it. Special characters, syntax, indentation. You can't dictate curly brackets efficiently. Developers will keep their mechanical keyboards until someone solves that problem.

And there's voice strain to consider. Speech therapists recommend a maximum of three hours of dictation per day. One RSI sufferer who switched to voice computing reported losing their voice multiple times from overdoing it. We might just be trading one repetitive strain injury for another.

What this means for your workspace plans

If you're redesigning your office or thinking about flexible working policies, this matters.

1. Private spaces aren't a luxury

Phone booths, quiet rooms, bookable pods. These aren't perks for introverts. They're infrastructure for voice-enabled productivity. Without them, you're blocking a technology shift that's already happening.

2. Hybrid work makes voice viable

People working from home two or three days a week can actually use voice dictation. Your remote working policy might be the thing that finally makes the productivity gains real.

3. Don't ditch the keyboards yet

Microsoft's approach makes sense. Support both. Your developers need keyboards. Your salespeople might love voice. Your HR team needs privacy either way. One input method doesn't fit all jobs.

4. RSI accommodation is about to get interesting

The Equality Act requires reasonable adjustments for employees with disabilities. Voice dictation is increasingly that adjustment. But if your office makes voice impractical, you've got a problem to solve.

The keyboard survives through bad architecture

Here's what I find kind of funny about all this. The keyboard isn't winning because it's the better technology. It's winning because we designed offices that make the better technology unusable.

We spent decades building open plan spaces in the name of collaboration. Then we put everyone on video calls to people in other buildings. Now we're surprised that voice input doesn't work in an environment where everyone can hear everything.

The keyboard is the cockroach of input devices. Not because it's superior. Because it survives hostile environments.

Microsoft knows this. That's why they put both a Copilot key and voice activation in the same product. They're betting on both horses because nobody knows which workspace will win. The one with walls? Or the one with hot desks?

Your keyboard isn't going anywhere. But that says more about your office than it does about the technology.