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This article makes an empirical contribution to the sociology of conversational artificial intelligence by presenting a video-ethnographic research on the everyday use of voice assistants in twenty-two French households over a span of three years. The results belie the ideas conveyed in the public space by the proponents of these devices, who consider the interactions with them as natural conversations, thus obfuscating the complexity of real uses. We suggest describing these interactions as ‘simulacrum’ of conversation that creates an “illusion of conversation” as well as an “illusion of intuitiveness”, which are sources of interactional problems. We highlight the significant “work” that users make to discover and interact with these devices. This research highlights a new facet of user’s work characteristic of the proliferation of voice services: that of managing and coordinating multiple conversational agents. This user work makes up the invisible side of relationships with conversational machines. The article also describes the appropriation processes that gradually establish voice assistants in everyday activities and routines. It identifies the forms of transformation of practices and the social inscription of these machines within family groups, characterized by an asymmetry of uses.