Will audio tech company Sonos soon have a new owner? If so, which tech giant will it be?
A report Sunday (Jan. 19) by Bloomberg News examines the company’s trouble and uncertain future. After a messy app rollout in May, Sonos’ market valuation is roughly $1.7 billion, down from more than $5 billion during the pandemic.
The board, wrote Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, will likely consider whether a sale makes sense. And while Apple has long been seen as a potential buyer, Gurman thinks it’s unlikely.
“If Apple really wanted to build out its home audio business, it already has the hardware, software, content and manufacturing chops internally,” he wrote. “It’s just about wanting to get things done properly — something that Apple is already working on. Later this year, it will launch its own home hub and a new HomePod mini.”
The report also argued that suitors like Meta, Google and Microsoft also wouldn’t make sense, while Amazon, Samsung and Spotify might consider a purchase.
Of that group, Gurman adds, Amazon seems like the most natural fit, as the company is expected to revamp its device portfolio with an eye toward more upscale products. Sonos’ tech could serve as the backbone for new Amazon Echo devices running the upcoming AI-infused Alexa digital assistant.
In exploring Amazon’s efforts to upgrade Alexa last week, PYMNTS wrote that making the assistant smarter — something that’s proven tougher than expected to do — is not as cut-and-dry as adding a large language model to it to replace its simpler algorithms.
“It’s not as simple as moving from one model to another,” Mike Finley, chief technology officer and co-founder of AnswerRocket, said in an interview with PYMNTS.
“Agentic AI is a bit more nuanced. It needs more structure and guidance to get us a better result. We will have to give it the original ‘prompt’ like we would in the past, but there’s more work to shape the AI behavior we want.”
He added that for Alexa to become more useful, it will need to become advanced enough for people to trust it with more important tasks.
“Would you trust Alexa to send the babysitter some cash? What if it hallucinates a couple of zeros on the wrong side? Agentic models can use resources like the ability to access databases or financial accounts, websites, documents, spreadsheets. But powering Alexa with those tools means gaining consumer trust to click ‘allow,’” Finley said.
OpenAI’s CEO says the generative artificial intelligence (AI) startup has reached approximately 800 million people.
“Something like 10% of the world uses our systems, now a lot,” said Sam Altman, whose comments at a Friday (April 11) TED 2025 event were reported by Seeking Alpha.
Host Chris Anderson pointed out that Altman had said his company’s user base was growing rapidly, doubling in a “just a few weeks.”
The report noted that OpenAI’s growth has been helped along by viral features like the ability to generate images and videos in a range of styles, such as that of legendary Japanese animation studio, Studio Ghibli.
Last month, Altman said the company, maker of ChatGPT, had added a million users in one hour. Asked during the TED event if the company had considered compensating artists for creating works in their style, Altman said there could be prompts that could trigger payments for specific artists.
“I think it would be cool to figure out a new model where if you say, ‘I want to do it in the name of this artist,’ and they opt in, there’s a revenue model there,” Altman said.
Altman added the company had guidelines to prevent the AI model from generating images in the styles of specific artists or creators. He also discussed the company’s work on AI agents, models that can operate autonomously on behalf of users.
In other AI news, PYMNTS wrote last week about ways the technology can help companies hoping to alleviate the cost of new tariffs. While those levies will eat into the bottom line of many businesses, AI can help reduce costs while ensuring productivity stays up.
Research by PYMNTS Intelligence has shown that 82% of workers who use generative AI at least weekly say it increases productivity, even though half of these workers also worry that AI would replace them at their jobs.
“AI can also facilitate material selection by assessing availability, compliance and cost implications, which helps brands find substitute materials when needed without compromising on quality or compliance with regulatory standards,” said Tarun Chandrasekhar, president and CPO at Syndigo.
Still, Pierre Laprée, chief product officer of SpendHQ, told PYMNTS that while AI has a part to play, it’s “misguided” to believe that AI will automatically offset rising costs from shifts in trade policy.
“Tariffs are complex, and so is procurement,” he said. “You need more than an algorithm — you need clean, structured, specific data. Without that, AI won’t reduce risk. It will amplify it.”
