I also hope to finally receive an official response to this.

Apparently, Sonos hasn't and won't (for the time being) include Google Assistant support in newer or future products.

If Google Assistant is no longer available soon, there probably won't be an upgrade to Gemini. This means that older Sonos products will no longer be supported.

Important message to Sonos:
If I were the CEO of Sonos, I'd swallow my pride and finally listen to the customers.
1. Retrofit Google Assistant or Gemini support for all products
2. Chromecast integration

So you lost a legal battle against Google (perhaps rightfully so), but don't you want to treat your customers to something nice again without taking money out of their pockets for new, expensive speakers?
Maintain your ecosystem and software consistently so that customers don't ditch the company, because there are enough other manufacturers that offer "very close" quality.

At the latest when Gemini is not supported and my Sonos Arc or Sub breaks, I will have to look for a good alternative to be able to play YouTube Music properly without the Sonos app.

Let's be honest? You could have also worked well with Google. Your hardware would complement the Nest system (like IKEA). Google would benefit immensely from you, and you would benefit from Google's customers. After all, anyone who has individual Nest speakers might also want a home theater system.

I get why people assume that Sonos stopped supporting google due to the legal battles, but it seems more likely to me that Sonos looked at the cost of the license and dev support costs to support Google voice and chromecast, as well as the market for the feature, and decided that it wasn’t the way to go.  Maybe that will change, but I doubt Sonos made the decision based off pride, rather than what was good for Sonos.

That said, I do think Sonos needs to make an announcement regarding what will happen to speakers that do have GA onboard already.

Assuming Sonos knows what will happen, at this point…

I don't understand what all this secrecy is about instead of just speaking plainly, and I can already say that those who don't keep up with the times will be left behind.

I am suggesting that Google hasn’t told Sonos yet, so Sonos is unable to make this statement desired. 

I’d really like an answer on this. I’m thinking about adding more to my Sonos system, but if they can’t sort stuff like this out, I’ll not make any more purchases and go with a brand that can. All manner of devices work happily with Google Assistant - can’t be that hard or that expensive.

I would also appreciate an answer from Sonos on this. I've had to move my Voice Assistant to Alexa post the upgrade but would much rather be using Gemini as its become a disjointed experience.

At the time Sonos stopped enabling GA on their newer devices Sonos stated new demands by Google made implementing GA unworkable for Sonos, see 

Though in one of the preceding posts ​@Corry P leaves the possibility GA Will return open, I will not hold my breath until this happens. Sonos is still working with Google Nest Mini’s though.

I do hope Sonos will either make GA work on newer devices or go over to Gemini though, because GA is the only voice assistant that work in my native language, Dutch.

My work around for GA on my Arc Ultra for now is that I’ve enabled GA on a Sonos One that I use as one of my surrounds.

I think it’s better to separate this in to two distinct features

1 - Using GA/Gemini voice assistant via Sonos voice enabled devices.  I would be surprised if this happens anytime soon.  There is surely some licensing costs and development effort.  That said, Sonos has a new CEO who may view this feature, and the relationship with Google, differently than the old CEO.  If they did want to pursue this, I think Sonos would still take the approach of not making any official announcements till the new feature is fully tested and ready to go.  Sonos had made announcements and a go live date when GA was first promised, but the missed the target date badly, upsetting a lot of customers.

2 - Using Gemini to control Sonos speakers via non-Sonos devices.  This seems like it would be entirely up to Google to develop and enable. The interface is already there for GA, so Gemini would just need to use that same interface.  However, Google could decide that they want an entirely new interface, maybe even for good reasons, which could require work on Sonos part.  I would think Google would want everything that worked with GA to automatically work on Gemini though, without requiring every other company to dedicate develop efforts, at least to maintain existing functionality.

I appreciate the complexity but at the end of the day this is an issue for sonos to sort out and they need to move with changes in technology too.

I purchased a "smart" speaker (actually 5 in total) for a reason and they're not really "smart" anymore. If it's not resolved I'll probably look to move my ecosystem to another brand when it's time to upgrade.

I had the exact same issue where I had to reconfigure google assistant on all my Sonos speakers.

After having reset factory all of them and tried everything I could think of. I finally switch on my old android phone. (Samsung S20) and I was able to configure google assistant as it was. (thanks it was not updated with Gemini)

Nevertheless, for the one who doesn’t have this possibility it’s now a pure nightmare to configure google assistant on their Sonos speaker and I don’t understand why Sonos is not doing anything.

No-one can be sure Sonos isn’t doing anything. Given Sonos never announces anything until it is ready, I don’t imagine we’d hear about top level discussions between Sonos and Google until resolution has been reached and Google Assistant (or Gemini) implemented.

One might hope that the new CEO will want to clear things up between Sonos and Google, given both parties have at different times been found to have breached the other’s rights or patents etc - upheld or not. It’s in neither’s interests to not collaborate, and whilst the ‘battle’ happened under Spence, hopefully the bad blood will be deemed impractical in commercial terms for the parties as both sides has means of being restrictive to the other. 

Time will tell but I’d be surprised if resolution wasn’t reached in the end.

I'm so f***ing pissed about them not fixing this or even admitting there is an issue. I spent over an hour with their support chat resetting my whole damn system and to find out it's a known issue through a forum instead of truly maddening. If I hadn't spent almost 5k on my setup I'd throw them against the wall. I bought smart speakers, to control my smart house that's fully rigged. 

Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.

The irony is, if you ask Google whether Sonos supports Google Assistant, Gemini delivers this!

Hi ​@Roq_and_roll 

Sorry to hear about the issue you had with adding Google Assistant. The agent you spoke with will receive some feedback, as they should have provided you with the following information:

I hope this helps.

Google plans to replace assistant with gemini end 2025 — and then what?

It’s a workaround that gets the assistant back onto the speakers, but if you switch back to Gemini on your phone, you just get errors. It’s not a workaround. It’s just a time waster. 

Hi ​@Roq_and_roll 

Sorry to hear that you get errors when you switch back to Gemini on your phone.

What errors do you see, and where do you see them, please?

I tried to get the Google Assistant running on my Move and Arc (not Arc Ultra). 

Went through the support chat and the support via phone.
I went a complete day through all of my system settings just to find out in the forum, that this is a well known problem.

But no one told me about this when going through the process.  

It is an absolute nightmare to get the Assistant running on the Sonos System. 
And if i summarize what i read here it is mainly based on luck if you still can connect it or not. 

So far nothing worked on my side. 
Not the work around described here, not the “old handy” without Gemini of my partner. 

 

So now i would like to have an answer on how i can connect the Google Assistant to my Move and Arc again?

I'm so over all this crap, I've returned my new system, goodbye Sonos

Hi ​@Thomas TT. 

Sorry to hear about the issue you are still having with adding Google Assistant to your Move and Arc speakers.

To be clear, you should be able to.

I can only recommend that you get back in touch with our technical support team for assistance.

I hope this helps.

@Corry P, Could this be the root cause of the current issues with “Adding Google Assistant to Sonos?” It looks like GA is being phased out by Google.

https://blog.google/products/gemini/google-assistant-gemini-mobile/

Hi ​@Smilja 

It seems likely to me, but I cannot confirm.

We are aware that if you have Gemini installed and set as the device default, then it needs to be set to standard Google Assistant for the duration of adding the assistant to a speaker, but if that does not help, I don’t know what the issue would be.

I hope this helps.

​@Corry P That does not help. I think Sonos are being deliberately dishonest, here is the lowdown:

Summary of what I found on my own, after following bad advice from Sonos:

It’s highly unlikely that Sonos will re-enable Google Assistant support on older devices where it has already been removed due to the rollout of Gemini (Google’s new AI platform). The transition has introduced significant compatibility issues:

1. Google’s Platform Shift

• Google is phasing out classic Google Assistant in favour of Gemini, and devices that weren’t set up with Assistant before this change can no longer do so. Even enabling Gemini on a phone can break previously enabled Assistant functionality on Sonos devices.WIRED+15The Verge+15Sonos Community+15

2. Sonos App Limitations

• According to official statements and community moderators, the current Sonos app cannot re-add Google Assistant to devices that didn’t already have it–even despite software updates. Sonos has stated the feature will return “in due course”, but no timeline has been provided. Sonos Community

• If Assistant was active before, it can still function, but new setups or re-installs will not work.Sonos CommunitySonos CommunitySonos Community

3. Sonos Community Feedback

• Sonos staff and users confirm: GA is unlikely to ever be supported on newer devices and older units may only retain support if Assistant was already configured. There is no plan to replace it with Gemini.Reddit+15Sonos Community+15Sonos Community+15

• Many users report that after factory resets, long outages, or mobile device upgrades (like switching to Gemini), Assistant simply cannot be re-enabled.