Quick summary
Sonos is expected to launch and AI voice system to support its speakers. The company CEO hinted at new AI with an event in September.
It looks like the focus will be on home AI, making sure that the speakers can work more intelligently with the hardware and the surroundings they are in.
Sonos is planning a "product launch event" for September the company has revealed via its third quarter results. While Sonos CEO Tom Conrad didn't reveal exactly what that would be, he then went on to talk about "conversational computing and predictive intelligence".
That's right, it looks like Sonos is going to be moving its platform in the direction of AI, with Conrad going on to address the debate about which is the "best" AI model and how Sonos might put AI to best use in the home environment.
"The lasting value is going to be in what surrounds the model in a real home: the hardware that can converse with quality across every room, the system that already knows the shape of a home and the way a family lives in it, the connectivity to reach the speakers, services, and devices that turn a request into coordinated action."
Sonos shot to fame more than a decade ago, thanks to enabling multi-room audio. With a central controller, multiple Sonos speakers could be grouped and controlled, making streaming a much better experience across the home.
That was followed by a deliberate focus on quality, looking to appeal to more aspiring customers, while devices like the Amazon Echo offered rival connected streaming skills at much lower prices. Sonos' audio devices are still highly prised however, with a reinforcement of its soundbar offering over recent years.
Amazon's latest move for its Echo devices was to boost Alexa's performance using AI - called Alexa+ - although Sonos' own Voice Control system is rather basic by comparison, focusing mostly on music control.
Sonos has, in the past, supported other brands' voice control systems, but with the rapid acceleration of AI, the sort of voice models that Amazon and Google have offered over the last decade are probably easier to develop.
Exactly what Sonos will offer and how it will implemented remains to be seen. However the company is no stranger to riling its user base with changes, having struggled to put a new app in place and facing criticism for dropping support for a number of legacy devices.
Whether Sonos' current line-up have the processing power to handle AI functions is unknown, although the company might hand it off to the cloud for processing, so that older devices remain supported.
With September just around the corner, it won't be long until Sonos' plans are revealed in full.
