Chromecast integration is a hard requirement when you're deeply entrenched in Google's ecosystem and surrounded in Assistant-based smart home stuff. It cuts down your options for things like soundbars a little unless you're willing to augment that with extra gadgets, but Google tells us that one big-name brand is making an across-the-board to change that, with more planned. "All Bose speakers and soundbars" will be getting Chromecast functionality built right in.

It's not immediately clear how far back this "all" claim goes — we assume it applies to the company's currently supported lineup if they've got the smarts to be updated, and Google is mum so far on which other brands might benefit from Chromecast functionality in the future. Bose might publish more details in the future.

This isn't an out-of-the-blue-change, either, more of a slow transition. In 2018, Bose launched a handful of speakers and soundbars, implying that Assistant support would be coming to them. Following direct integration in the QC35II, Bose rolled out Google's smarts to its wider lineup. I can't say I've used Bose's Assistant integration myself, but some multi-voice-assistant implementations like Sonos's aren't quite as good as the "full" Assistant experience you can get on other speakers like Google's first-party Nest stuff. If Bose's smart speakers didn't support Chromecast streaming, that could be true here as well.

Whatever the Assistant experience may have been like for Bose device owners in the past, Google tells us that built-in Chromecast functionality is coming to Bose's entire smart speaker and soundbar lineup, and that more brands will enjoy it soon as well. The timeframe here is "coming months," so Bose customers still have a small wait ahead of themselves.