This week marks the 10-year anniversary of the Snapdragon Summit, and for 2025, Qualcomm has a special guest from Google who declared smart glasses as the future of AI.
During Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon’s keynote speech, Google’s Rick Osterloh took to the stage and had something interesting to say about wearable technology.
After a chat with Amon about various subjects, the company’s Senior Vice President of Devices & Services was asked which of the projects it is working on with Qualcomm is the most exciting.
In response, Osterloh said that, aside from industrial applications bringing AI to robotics, what he’s “most excited about” is “bringing this capability [AI] en masse to consumers with smart glasses. I think that’s going to be awesome.”
“That will be a new computing surface, and it’s going to allow everyone to be able to share their context with AI to get the most out of the technology and be able to operate freely through the world. And I think that’s really going to be an exciting change,” he added.
This will come in the form of Android XR (Extended Reality) devices, Google’s new platform for the category, but the technology is yet to become available via any commercial devices.
However, that should change soon, as Samsung’s long-awaited Project Moohan headset is tipped to be officially launched next month. It happened to be on display at the Snapdragon Summit, too – see below.
Chris Martin / Foundry
Although we’d love to see Google make a spiritual successor to Google Glass, which launched way back in 2013, ahead of its time, that might not happen. Project Aura exists, built by Xreal, but it’s for developers.
The question is whether Google and its partners can take on the likes of Meta, which has just launched its Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 smart glasses. They boast several upgrades compared to the originals, including better cameras and longer battery life.
The Facebook owner might have a head start in XR tech, but Google has far more advanced AI as its ace card. Gemini could be a huge differentiator here as the top AI agent for this type of device at the moment.
That remains to be seen, but we’ve already encountered how good Gemini is across other devices, such as smartphones and smartwatches. Google is also rolling it out to just about every tech device you can think of.
Mark Hachman / Foundry
Qualcomm is pushing ‘AI everywhere’ at this year’s Snapdragon Summit. These include glasses that help out throughout the workplace, from simple reminders to spotting someone in the room who you promised to have a meeting with and finding time in your schedule for it.
Another example featured a woman walking through a city and getting a restaurant recommendation based on her preference for food and having some free time.
One question is whether Google is too late to the party. Samsung’s Project Moohan is a mixed reality headset, similar to Apple’s Vision Pro, so it isn’t designed to be worn while walking down the street.
Samsung is also working on AI-powered smart glasses with Google, according to CNET, but when those will arrive is unknown. For all we know, Meta might be onto its third generation of smart glasses by then and have cornered the market. Only time will tell.
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