Google Is Back to Smart Glasses: This Time It Might Work

Some firms never learn – or do they? Google’s first high-profile foray into intelligent eyewear, Google Glass, was a much-ridiculed bomb; so badly received it coined a new pop culture epithet (glassholes) for people who used their tech spectacles to film others on the sly.

Alphabet has recently announced a partnership with Warby Parker to develop a new line of chic, AI-powered glasses that will see it pour $75 million into product development – plus another $75 million equity investment in the company.

Will it be a second PR disaster or follow the footsteps of Meta’s successful deal with Ray Ban? We consider why Google might well get it right this time.

Table of Contents Table of Contents

1. Key Takeaways
2. New Google Smart Glasses: AI Eyewear With Warby Parker & Kering
3. Return to Form Factor
4. Gadget Must-Have or Google Glass II?
5. The Bottom Line
6. FAQs
7. References

Show Full Guide

Table of Contents

1. Key Takeaways
2. New Google Smart Glasses: AI Eyewear With Warby Parker & Kering
3. Return to Form Factor
Show Full Guide
4. Gadget Must-Have or Google Glass II?
5. The Bottom Line
6. FAQs
7. References

New Google Smart Glasses: AI Eyewear With Warby Parker & Kering

Alphabet would love it if we’d all just leave Google Glass in the past – and that’s fair. The company created a groundbreaking, innovative product that generated more reputational damage than revenue.

The tech was amazing, but the fit with fashion’s fickle zeitgeist wasn’t, shall we say, calibrated to market needs. Sometimes great ideas don’t pan out. Size, scale, and deep pockets only get you so far.

Fast forward to 2025, and Google is ready to try again, this time through a partnership with prescription eyewear experts Warby Parker and luxe fashion house Kering. Together, the three firms plan to launch a line of intelligent eyewear and carve out a space in the rapidly expanding – but still smallish – smart glasses market.

As part of the deal, Google will underwrite up to $75 million of Warby Parker’s product development and go-to-market costs. It will also make an equity investment in WRBY valued at $75 million.

The two firms plan to bring new products to market incrementally, with the first glasses set to hit online shelves later this year. A joint company announcement says the new line will have multimodal AI features, meaning the specs will be able to read and process text, audio, video, and images. Both prescription and non-prescription lenses will be available.

This approach to AI “is perfectly suited to glasses,” said Dave Gilboa, Warby Parker’s Co-CEO. It will enable “real-time context and intelligence to augment a wearer’s surroundings as they move through the world.”

New Google AI glasses will be designed for comfort and suitable for all-day wear. Google’s Vice President of XR, Shahram Izadi, said they will run on the Android XR operating system for headsets and glasses.

In an announcement the following day, Milan-based Kering Eyewear, which designs glasses for the likes of Cartier, Gucci, and Saint Laurent, unveiled its own Google partnership to create AI glasses. Its glasses will also run on Android XR and use AI to augment inputs from everyday life.

Return to Form Factor

The Warby/Kering arrangement takes Google back into a market it pioneered – one which is now looking crowded.

Facebook owner Meta and Ray-Ban owner EssilorLuxottica entered into a well-received partnership last year to create a line of smart glasses using classic Ray-Ban styling. The glasses have a voice-activated AI interface from Meta, and recently added real-time speech translation.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg told analysts recently that demand for the glasses is intensifying, with sales tripling over the previous year. Amazon and Snap have joined the fray, with each having launched its own line of branded smart glasses. Apple is rumored to be working on smart glasses that use augmented reality.

Markets seem to like the story. While the deal isn’t big enough to move the dial for a giant like Alphabet, Warby Parker’s stock price was up 16% the day after the announcement. Financial analysts are onboard, and there are suggestions that the deal points to bigger things.

Speaking to Cantech, analyst Matt Koranda said Google looks to be partnering with another eyewear brand called Gentle Monster, suggesting it could be building an ecosystem of optical partners that include Warby, Kering, and more to come.

When you’re wearing glasses all day, you want them to match your style. That’s why we’re working with Gentle Monster and Warby Parker, who will be the first eyewear partners to build glasses with Android XR. #GoogleIO pic.twitter.com/xIfRSy2eAK

— Google (@Google) May 20, 2025

Will the fashion crowd buy in? Matthew Drinkwater, head of innovation at the London College of Fashion, told Vogue Business that intelligent eyewear makers face an uphill battle to prove relevance. He said:

“Who can create a product that feels inevitable, not optional? The more players that enter the field, the faster we’ll get to that culturally defining moment where smart glasses move from curiosity to necessity.”

Gadget Must-Have or Google Glass II?

On the feature side, the Google/Warby smart spectacles will likely incorporate elements such as an in-frame camera and microphone, an optional in-lens display, open-ear speakers, all controlled by an interface powered by Google’s Gemini AI model.

That sounds much as you’d expect, and follows the path laid out by Meta and its Ray Ban line. In fact, it’s not hugely different from what Google Glass had to offer. One key difference is that today, those features can be delivered in a slimmer, lighter, and more stylish form factor. Today’s intelligent glasses aren’t so obviously teched-up.

That unobtrusiveness is important, but so is the addition of generative AI. In a fireside chat at the annual Google I/O developer conference 2025, Google Co-Founder Sergey Brin said he’d “learned from his mistakes’ since the Google Glass debacle of 2013.”

He attributed part of the failure to a “technology gap,” and that the rise of generative artificial intelligence has enabled Alphabet to revive the original idea of Google Glass. AI, he said, allows smart glasses to deliver their capabilities “without constantly distracting you.”

Reviewers who’ve got hold of early prototypes say Gemini is, in fact, the ‘killer feature.’ Brin also admitted that, being an entirely new category, the company didn’t have a workable supply chain model and couldn’t manage costs to offer the glasses at an attractive price point. That’s where Warby Parker’s domain expertise and extensive supplier relationships come into play.

The Bottom Line

Brin made a joke about the infamous Google Glass launch in 2012, which featured skydivers leaping from a plane to land inside San Francisco’s Moscone Center. The jump was live-streamed through their Google Glasses – winning the internet for its audacious and well-executed debut.

With 20/20 hindsight, it’s hard to miss the “crashing to Earth” metaphor. Meta has won kudos for its Ray Ban deal, but there have been issues. Complaints about battery life suggest they may not be suitable for a full day at work. Others have noted smartphone connectivity issues. The built-in camera is limited to portrait orientation –and it only shoots from the front.

Over the long term, these types of UX irritants could impact user engagement. Will Google’s latest foray into computer-laden eyewear land better? At least, we should try it.

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