Tech Insights - Sonos Claims Google has Halted its Voice Assistant Interoperability Technology

A recent report by the Washington Post has claimed that Google has been blocking Sonos’ attempts at making multi-assistant speakers. This is after Sonos’ development of a platform called Concurrency, that allows multiple voice assistants to be activated from the same device, just with different wake words. Google, for its part, has stated that ‘Interoperability will continue to be a priority for us, but we also want to ensure users have a positive experience using our products and that we protect their privacy’. At present, Concurrency’s platform is banned by Google’s distribution agreement, which requires that Google Assistant must operate independently as the sole general purpose AI on a smart device.

Timescales: Sonos began developing its Concurrency technology in 2016, completing it in 2018. Google has allegedly consistently refused to demo the technology since that time. The report detailing this was released on the 29th September 2021.