Shares of EssilorLuxottica, the Ray-Ban maker tied to Meta through its smart-glasses partnership, crashed by 4.8% on Monday after Google said it will roll out its first AI-powered glasses in 2026.
Meta’s stock also slipped by 1% in premarket trading as of press time. Google said it plans to release two types of glasses. One set will be audio-only, letting people speak directly to the Gemini AI assistant.
The other set will come with an in-lens display that shows simple visual information like navigation directions and live language translation. Google said the first display models will land next year, though it did not specify any style. The company confirmed that the full lineup of AI-powered glasses will land in 2026.
Google builds glasses with big hardware partners
Google is not developing the hardware alone. The company is working with Samsung, Gentle Monster, and Warby Parker after locking in a $150 million deal with Warby Parker in May. The glasses will run on Android XR, Google’s operating system for headsets and mixed-reality devices. In a Monday filing, Warby Parker said its first glasses built with Google will hit the market in 2026, which matches Google’s own timeline.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin said in May that he learned from the company’s first attempt at smart glasses, which failed because early AI systems weren’t strong and supply chains limited what they could build.
Brin said, “Now, in the AI world, the things these glasses can do to help you out without constantly distracting you — that capability is much higher.”
Google’s return places a second large tech company in the same lane at a time when crypto-heavy investors are already on edge about how AI hardware shifts might collide with markets tied to risk sentiment.
Meta pushes for new AI model while investors watch spending
Meta’s own AI roadmap has moved away from public branding and toward internal hiring. Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said last year that the Llama AI models would be the “most advanced in the industry” and “bring the benefits of AI to everyone.”
In January, he opened Meta’s earnings call, talking about Llama for several minutes. In Meta’s October call, he mentioned Llama once.
People close to the company said Meta is building a new frontier model named Avocado, seen as the next major step beyond Llama. Many inside Meta expected Avocado to arrive before the end of 2025, but the new target is the first quarter of 2026.
The shift is tied to training tests meant to make sure performance is stable when the model goes live. A Meta spokesperson said, “Our model training efforts are going according to plan and have had no meaningful timing changes.”
Meta has spent heavily to stay competitive. In June, the company paid $14.3 billion to hire Alexandr Wang, the founder of Scale AI, along with key engineers and researchers. Meta also bought a large stake in Scale at the same time.
Four months later, Meta lifted its 2025 capital spending forecast to $70 billion to $72 billion, up from $66 billion to $72 billion, as it continued to chase AI capabilities that could match or exceed what competitors like Google and OpenAI are rolling out.
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Source: https://www.cryptopolitan.com/google-returns-to-smart%E2%80%91glasses/
