Right after going pubic on 1st August, the CEO of US-based smart speaker maker Sonos has said that Google Assistant will soon land on their speakers. This could happen as soon as by this year’s end, right in time for the holiday season.
“We’re working as hard as we can and so is Google to get it ready for that time,” Patrick Spence, Sonos CEO, told The Verge during a phone call. Although the company has been testing Google Assistant integration with their Sonos One speaker since last year, the integration is yet to be turned into reality.
Suggesting the arrival of Google Assistant on Sonos speakers later this year, Spence said that it was important to have the feature ready for the holiday sales period.
In addition, Spense noted that Sonos is considering a partnership with the likes of Tencent or Baidu to bring a Chinese-language voice assistant to their speakers.
Sonos is competing with makers like Amazon, Apple and Google. Amazon’s Alexa virtual assistant has been available on Sonos speakers for a while and Google Assistant’s arrival could help the company attract more users. The company also faces a risk of rivals pulling their virtual assistants from third-party speakers in favor of developing their own speakers. Spense, however, is confident that companies like Amazon aren’t likely to pull out of their speakers saying, “I’m confident that Amazon will continue to want to get Alexa onto more devices and homes.”
It will be interesting to see if Sonos is actually able to bring Google Assistant to their speakers by the year’s end. Currently, speakers like Sonos Play:1 works with Amazon’s Alexa virtual assistant.
Source: The Verge | Via: Engadget
