Have you heard the whispers in the corridors of the tech sphere?

Smart glasses have turned smarter. In fact, they’re now powerful enough to soon outsmart the smartphone thanks to AI. At least that’s what is being claimed.

These devices have been around for more than a decade. Remember Google Glass? But, they have made a dramatic comeback in India in the past few months.

The whispers turned shouts with the field suddenly getting crowded. Reliance Jio is about to roll out Jio Frames, Lenskart has begun building AI eyewear with AjnaLens, and homegrown startup QWR is getting ready to unveil the country’s first indigenously developed AI smart glasses, Humbl, ahead of this festive season.

While these companies have been tinkering with the idea for a while and most have worked in the areas of VR (virtual reality) headsets, these launches follow the entry of Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses in India earlier this year, which sparked fresh interest in what was once considered a failed bet.

Google, which pioneered in this segment, could not scale its product worldwide, despite multiple attempts, due to high costs, hardware limitations, and privacy concerns.

However, there seems to be a potential shift in the trend globally. AI smart glasses reportedly accounted for 78% of total global shipments in the first half of 2025, up from 46% a year back, primarily driven by Meta Ray-Ban AI Glasses.

An IDC report showed that despite a slowdown in smartwatch and earwear segments in the second half of 2025, smart glass shipments shot off more than 1,000% over the last year.

So, what brought in clarity in the once foggy fate of these new IoT devices? It’s the rise of generative AI (GenAI).

With AI, The Lens Tells A Lot More

The raging wave of AI-powered smart glasses has gone beyond Meta, sweeping through large parts of the tech landscape, with the likes of Alibaba and Xiaomi launching their AI glasses, Google returning to the lab to develop a new-generation device, and Apple warming up to enter the ring next year. Even chip giant Qualcomm has doubled down on XR (extended reality) with its Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 processor.

The momentum is unmistakable. Experts believe that GenAI is reshaping the software story in these glasses, helping re-imagine the hardware aspect, as well.

“Until recently, smart glasses struggled with limited use cases and........

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