Sonos introduces new headphones, soundbar, and software in its biggest announcement in years

At an event in New York City, Sonos announced two new audio products — the Sonos Beam Ultra soundbar and Sonos Ace Ultra headphones, details of which were found in an FCC filing in early August — and a major update to its audio operating system dubbed Sonos 27. It’s the biggest single Sonos announcement since 2024, when a new app rollout upset its customers and sent it into damage control mode .

Software changes are core to Sonos’ announcements, with the company leaning heavily into AI integration with Sonos 27. This includes the company’s own Sonos 27voice assistant that it built in-house for music and system control. It’s coming as an early access, opt-in feature this fall. There’s also Sonos 27mcp, which gives the ability to connect any existing AI models such as ChatGPT or Google Gemini — although for some reason Google Assistant is still not natively supported. Sonos 27mcp launches in early access on September 8th.

In addition, users will be able to create up to 10 of their own agents through Sonos 27 to run, with whichever model they choose. These custom agents can be given different voices and roles. Brandon Holley, senior director of product development, gave examples of having a moody detective give you the morning news or a motivational coach whisper motivational aspirations when you wake up. Custom agents won’t be available until sometime in 2027.

Both Sonos 27mcp and the custom agents seem to expand the customization and control of a Sonos system beyond what the app and Sonos 27voice is capable of.

All products compatible with the current Sonos app can be controlled with Sonos 27mcp, and everything with a microphone works with Sonos 27voice. When the Sonos custom agents are available, they’ll work everywhere Sonos 27voice is enabled.

There are two new features being added to Sonos Fabric, which is the name given to its whole-home connected system. The wireless Play and Move 2 portable speakers can be used as surround sound speakers in a home theater system. Once in place, the speakers will automatically configure to their new positions and roles as surround speakers without needing to initiate setup in the Sonos app. It’s not possible to use this feature with a single Play or Move 2.

Compatible Sonos headphones will now be included in a Sonos home system and support moving sound between speakers and headphones — the system senses the closest speaker and will pass the audio from it to the headphones. Headphone linking, as Sonos calls it, will roll out as an early access feature on September 29th. Sonos hints that this is just the beginning of added features, but no further details about possible future options were given.

Improvements continue to come to the app, as well, again with feedback from the community, including the Sonos subreddit. Home, system, and search tabs will be added across the bottom of the screen, and a room sort option can be pinned to the top for easier access to a customizable list. There’s a cool feature that calls back to physical audio components: a virtual volume knob, you control with two fingers like you would in the real world.