Sonos is opening an early-access beta of a new AI voice assistant, Sonos 27voice, on Friday 6 November. It is woken with the phrase "Hey Sonos" and takes requests in natural language, replacing the narrower Voice Control the company offers today. Access is by request through the Sonos app, and approval is not guaranteed.
During the beta it works only in the US and only in English, and it needs speakers on Sonos' S2 platform, the same requirement as the Sonos 27 app. It handles music, timers, supported smart-home accessories, weather and general-knowledge questions, and can play music by mood or genre on a single speaker or room. When it hears the wake word, the white status light brightens, whatever is playing gets quieter and a tone confirms it is listening.
Sonos' own examples include asking for the Bowie album about an adventure in space, who won this year's Super Bowl, or grouping every speaker and finding a wind-down playlist. The same update brings two other additions: Presets, which save groups of music and playback settings, and System Health on iOS. The Sonos 27 app update of 8 September was only a small navigation change that left voice for later.
The small, approval-based rollout reflects the company's wish to gather detailed feedback from a limited group before a full release, planned for 2027. 9to5Mac ties the caution to the 2024 app rebuild, which removed features, hurt older speakers and broke accessibility; Engadget calls that link likely. Chief executive Patrick Spence apologised at the time and made seven promises, and was later replaced.
Engadget's lead picture for the Sonos 27voice early-access announcement
Image: Engadget
When it introduced Sonos 27 in September, Sonos pitched the assistant for music and mood curation and for support of third-party assistants such as ChatGPT. 9to5Mac likens the change to Apple moving from old Siri to Siri AI, and the feature to Siri on HomePods.
About Sonos
Sonos is a home-audio company headquartered in Santa Barbara, California, best known for wireless multi-room speakers. It was founded in 2002 by John MacFarlane, Craig Shelburne, Tom Cullen and Trung Mai.
This is not the first time Sonos has tried to build voice into its speakers. It bought Snips in November 2019 to bring a music-specific voice assistant to its products, and its speakers also work with Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri. Its new app rolled out on 7 May 2024, and by late July Spence had apologised to customers and set out a schedule of fixes running through October. After the botched app he stepped down, and board member Tom Conrad became interim CEO, a post made permanent on 23 July 2025.
For now that means enrolment is limited and approval-based rather than open to every owner of a compatible speaker, with testers expected to send back detailed feedback.
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