Bose CEO Lila Snyder discussed the company's ongoing transformation with Decoder host Nilay Patel, four years after her last appearance on the podcast. Since then, she has sold off Bose Professional, acquired high-end audio brands McIntosh Labs and Sonus faber, and pivoted the company towards licensing its core audio technology to other manufacturers, turning Bose into a business-to-business player as well as a consumer one. This matters because it signals a fundamental shift in strategy for one of consumer tech's best-known audio brands, as it seeks new growth avenues amid a changing headphones market.

The conversation covered how Bose technology now appears in third-party products such as Skullcandy headphones and Epson projectors, and explored the operational challenges of becoming a software company alongside a hardware one. Snyder and Patel also discussed the potential rise of AI wearables, which may resemble headphones and require sophisticated audio processing for voice input, and whether Bose can still compete in a headphones market already reshaped by phone makers like Apple and Samsung building superior in-house options such as AirPods and Galaxy Buds.