- Sonos’ software program has traditionally been one among its largest differentiators
- …however Amazon is main a wave of improved AI in music apps
- Sonos is aware of change is coming, however might not be capable to adapt
Sonos has rightfully been credited with making nice audio system, however if you happen to take a historic survey of Sonos critiques, it’s the corporate’s app that has historically been singled out for a lot of the reward (word the phrases ‘historically’ and ‘historic’). Said companion app is the “face” of Sonos: a one-stop store that mixes the administration of your Sonos merchandise with entry to your whole music, whether or not you stream from a service or your private assortment.
Sadly, and far to the chagrin of Sonos homeowners, in 2024, the corporate successfully blew up its personal face – a wound brought on by the discharge of a poorly conceived and much more poorly executed app redesign.
Today, on the tail finish of 2025, a lot of the bugs have been squashed, customers’ favourite options have returned. And whereas some nonetheless wrestle with stability (myself included), the Sonos app is essentially usable as soon as once more – simply in time for it to be threatened with obsolescence by AI.
No, I’m not suggesting ChatGPT goes to exchange the Sonos app (although that doesn’t appear so far-fetched, does it?). Instead, Sonos needs to be casting a cautious eye at Amazon, Google, Apple, and even Spotify. These firms are quickly accelerating what their current AI assistants can do and integrating them into their respective music providers.
The major streaming music platforms have been looking for ways to augment their apps with AI for years. In 2023, Tidal introduced (and then discarded) AI playlists. That same year, Spotify debuted its AI DJ feature and then its own version of AI playlists in 2024. Spotify even partnered with OpenAI to let folks create AI playlists directly within ChatGPT.
This week, Amazon announced that its next-gen AI assistant, Alexa+, is available within its Amazon Music app for all U.S. customers on iOS and Android.
This poses a double risk for Sonos. The coming of Music Intelligence (as Amazon dubs it) will make Sonos’ excellent common search look like a relic from a bygone period, and it might show higher at managing your Sonos audio system than both the Sonos app or the corporate’s homegrown Sonos Voice Control assistant.
The timing couldn’t be worse: Sonos’ app redesign fiasco despatched customers scurrying for alternate options. Some merely ditched their Sonos gear in disgust, however those that stayed realized they may accomplish so much proper from their streaming service’s native apps. Spotify and Tidal have strong “Connect” ecosystems of audio system that their apps can management instantly, a method that Qobuz has lately copied. iPhone customers discovered that AirPlay was virtually as efficient because the Sonos app for grouping and controlling newer Sonos audio system. Now that the streaming apps are getting smarter, a few of these of us might by no means return to the Sonos app.
How intelligent is Alexa+? Very
How smart are we talking? Alexa+ lets you explore Amazon Music’s massive library of songs, albums, and playlists conversationally. Instead of the usual request/response model, where you specify the item you want and hope that your request was understood, you can perform multilayered and even vague inquiries, such as “Can you recommend new music that would make me seem cool to my 13-year-old daughter without trying too hard?” or “Play more songs like this but from different artists and with faster tempos” — the kinds of request that would typically elicit the dreaded, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand” response from the previous generation of voice assistants.
Alexa+ supports variations on these queries, too; everything from advanced playlist creation to questions about artists, lyrics, and even concert lineups.
This capability gets to the heart of what many of us want: to spend less time fussing about with apps and more time listening to music.
In 2022, it looked like Sonos was actually ahead of the AI curve. Its newly launched Sonos Voice Control (SVC), brought to life by modeling actor Giancarlo Esposito’s warm yet authoritative voice, could respond to most of the same music-related requests as Alexa or Google Assistant, plus several Sonos-specific commands like grouping speakers. Some of these commands even work without a cloud connection.
But rather than continuing to improve and expand on SVC, Sonos turned its attention to other projects, like the Sonos Ace headphones, a now-defunct effort at a streaming video device, and the notorious app redesign.
No one wakes up within the morning and says, I wish to spend a while within the Sonos app right this moment
Tom Conrad, Sonos CEO
Sonos’ new CEO, Tom Conrad, appears to understand the challenges his firm faces. “No one wakes up in the morning and says, I want to spend some time in the Sonos app today,” he told me three months into the job.
He’s additionally not blind to the fast adoption of AI. “Casting into the future,” he informed analysts in the course of the firm’s Q4 earnings call, “we see a world where live natural conversations with AI personalities are as commonplace as smartphones are today, and we believe Sonos’ expertise in Internet-connected voice-enabled personal hardware products for the home can position us as the center of these interactions.”
Does that imply Sonos will put money into SVC to show it into an Alexa+ rival, or will the corporate lean into its virtually decade-long technique of supporting third-party assistants, letting its customers resolve which one to make use of?
What’s sure is that the following interval will decide if Sonos stays the lead architect of its customers’ experiences, or whether or not its audio merchandise will merely turn out to be the appendages of AI-driven music providers, like Amazon Music, differentiated solely by their bodily attributes, and never by the software program that when outlined the wi-fi multiroom audio class.
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