Overview
- Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported that Apple plans to unveil its first smart glasses at the end of 2026, with shipments possibly slipping to 2027.
- The initial model is reported to prioritize a light design and Siri-driven AI features rather than full augmented-reality visual overlays.
- Tim Cook has made AR glasses a top strategic priority, with the effort positioned to compete directly with Meta’s offerings, according to the report.
- Industry coverage from 36Kr cites forecasts of about 5.5 million AI-glass shipments in 2025 and potential growth to roughly 90 million by 2030.
- Recent devices highlight sub-50g builds, thousand-yuan pricing, on-device AR chips like Qualcomm’s AR1 Gen1, multimodal vision-plus-audio capabilities, and a market split across audio-only, camera/assistant, and display/AR camps featuring players such as Huawei, Meta, Baidu, Rokid, and others.