Sonos Is Giving Its App a Heavy Dose of AI

As promised, Sonos is about to give its app a heavy dose of AI. On Nov. 6, the company is officially rolling out the early-access waitlist for its new voice assistant, with availability starting on Nov. 12. I already got a preview of the new voice assistant, dubbed Sonos27voice, at an event in September, and it’s certainly ambitious. In addition to controlling playback like the Sonos voice assistant of yore (think: commands like “skip this song”), it can also handle more natural language, like “play classic rock songs about space” or “play the Beastie Boys album with a jet on the cover.” You can use natural language commands for actions that you previously needed to manually complete in the app, too, like grouping and ungrouping speakers, for example, or moving audio between rooms. If it works, I could see this being a lot more convenient than having to whip out your phone and pull open the Sonos app. In many ways, Sonos’ plans remind me of similar voice assistant updates from Google and Amazon, which now control people’s smart homes and can handle multistep commands like “turn the lights off and lower the blinds.” Whether Sonos27voice can actually do all of those things at a level that satisfies people on a consistent basis is another question, but the early results I saw were at least promising. © Raymond Wong / Gizmodo If AI isn’t your thing, Sonos is also rolling out Presets in its app, letting you play music for different occasions. Presets set specific songs, of course, but also volumes and selected rooms where they play. Think of these as a more Sonos-specific kind of playlist. New voice assistants and a Presets feature might not seem like a lot, but as many of us know, the words “Sonos” and “app update” aren’t always things you want to hear together. That being said, Sonos has made quite a few improvements since its app disaster that sent its CEO packing, so hopefully a touch of AI keeps the train moving in the right direction—and at least they’re rolling the whole thing out in beta form first.