One method of operation includes beamforming a plurality of microphone outputs to obtain a plurality of virtual microphone audio channels. Each virtual microphone audio channel corresponds to a beamform. The virtual microphone audio channels include at least one voice channel (135) and at least one noise channel (136). The method includes performing voice activity detection (151) on the at least one voice channel (135) and adjusting a corresponding voice beamform until voice activity detection (151) indicates that voice is present on the at least one voice channel (135). Another method beamforms the plurality of microphone outputs to obtain a plurality of virtual microphone audio channels, where each virtual microphone audio channel corresponds to a beamform, and with at least one voice channel (135) and at least one noise channel (136). The method performs voice recognition on the at least one voice channel (135) and adjusts the corresponding voice beamform to improve a voice recognition confidence metric (159).