Sonos is preparing to launch a new pair of wireless headphones called the Sonos Ace Ultra, and this time the company appears to be taking a much more serious swing at AI.
The headphones were revealed through an FCC filing, first reported by Lowpass, with much of the filing redacted. The documents nevertheless confirm the Ace Ultra name and indicate that the headphones could be offered in up to five colours, a notable change from the original Ace, which launched in 2024 only in black and white.
The timing also lines up with Sonos’ plans for a September product launch. According to a report by Bloomberg, CEO Tom Conrad announced the event during the company’s recent earnings call, making the FCC filing a fairly strong indication that the Ace Ultra will be among the products unveiled next month.
The Ace Ultra could finally make AI useful on Sonos hardware.
The more interesting part of the story is not the extra colours. Technical details in the FCC filing suggest the new headphones could support voice commands, potentially allowing users to interact with AI assistants directly through the headset. Bloomberg reports that this would address a major omission from the first-generation Ace, which lacked support for voice interactions with AI chatbots.
That fits neatly into the broader strategy Sonos is now describing for its products. Conrad has said the company sees AI as a way to bring “conversational computing and predictive intelligence” into the home, rather than simply adding another chatbot to an existing device.
Sonos already has its own Sonos Voice Control assistant, and the company has expanded it with controls for products such as Philips Hue lights and Lutron Caséta accessories. Conrad’s ambition is for voice interactions to feel natural rather than something users have to deliberately activate and operate.
The company is also pitching its whole-home audio system as an advantage when AI becomes more embedded in everyday devices. Instead of an assistant living inside one gadget, Sonos wants its hardware to understand the layout of a home and how people use different rooms.
Sonos has more to prove with its second attempt.
The Ace Ultra is also something of a do-over for Sonos. The original Ace was a decent piece with its industrial design, but limited integration with the wider Sonos ecosystem was a pain point. Online reports showed users could privately listen to TV audio through Sonos soundbars, but they could not seamlessly move music between their home speakers and headphones.
That launch was followed by the company’s disastrous 2024 mobile-app update, which hurt sales and contributed to Sonos pausing new hardware launches. CEO Conrad has since acknowledged that bringing the Ace to market without deeper system integration was a mistake.
Now Sonos gets another chance. The Ace Ultra appears to combine a more mature headphone strategy with the company’s broader push into AI and connected-home experiences.
For Sonos, the challenge is no longer simply making a good pair of headphones. It needs to make headphones that give people a reason to choose Sonos over Apple, Sony, or Bose, and the company’s AI ambitions may be its best shot at doing that.
