Sonos is preparing to open early access testing for its AI voice assistant alongside a broad update to its app, the company said. The release adds new Presets and expands what users can do with the Sonos 27 app operating system update that arrived in September. The changes affect Sonos speaker owners in the US and other markets who use the app to manage playback across rooms.
With Presets, a user can set music to play at a chosen volume in a specific room, and the preset appears directly on the homescreen for quick playback. The update also lets users swipe on the Now Playing screen or the mini player to skip tracks. Sonos is adding a way to rearrange favorites as well.
The voice assistant, which Sonos previously teased, can start music, move playback to another room, group and ungroup speakers, and set timers. Sonos says it also handles more complicated natural-language requests, such as asking for an album by describing its cover art or asking who sang at the Super Bowl and then playing that artist's latest album in a particular room.
Sonos plans to let users create up to 10 custom agents, following the September Sonos 27 update that introduced the ability to connect AI agents to the app. The app will also work with System Health, an iOS-only feature that helps users identify problems in their setup.
The company has been working to recover from a disastrous app redesign in 2024. Sonos CEO Tom Conrad has promised to reverse that redesign, and the new features are part of those efforts.
The update lands as Sonos tries to win back users who struggled with the 2024 app. Presets and the voice assistant beta give the company new software features to highlight, while System Health adds diagnostic tools for iOS users.
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