Google unveiled its audio smart glasses, which will be released later this year, at Google I/O in Mountain View, California on May 19, 2026.
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google The company unveiled its first audio smart glasses on Tuesday as it looks to carve out a corner of the wearables market that has rivals. meta It’s making waves.
At Google’s annual I/O conference, the company announced that it has partnered with Samsung and eyewear manufacturers Gentle Monster and Warby Parker on glasses that incorporate the Gemini assistant. Google says they will be compatible with Android and iOS devices and will be available later this year.
“These are the first two designs in a larger collection coming this fall,” said Shahram Izadi, head of Android XR products and platforms, in a keynote at the developer conference. The glasses are intended to provide information that is “personally spoken to your ear, rather than displayed on a display.”
Google announced the glasses at an event on Tuesday, along with a number of AI announcements, including new AI models and AI agents.
The announcement signals Google’s willingness to make a calculated bet on new devices at a time when the future of wearables remains uncertain and investors await the promise of new form factors in the AI era. Google introduced smart display glasses last year and announced in December that it was working on audio-specific glasses for the Android XR platform.
For Google, user data is a real source of value because it can be used to improve AI models. The company did not discuss privacy terms related to its upcoming glasses.
Google Product Manager Nishta Bhatia during a keynote at Google I/O on May 19, 2026 in Mountain View, California.
Benjamin Fanjoy | Getty Images
In the AI eyewear space, Meta has seen early success with smart glasses in partnership with EssilorLuxottica. That’s a bright spot for the company, which has spent billions of dollars a quarter on its Reality Labs division. Ray-Ban and Oakley glasses powered by Meta’s AI digital assistant sold 7 million pairs in 2025.
In September, Meta released its own display glasses, allowing users to see messages, photo previews, live captions and other features through a small display built into one of the device’s lenses.
Apple is also reportedly working on several frame styles and camera designs for its first smart glasses. Other companies as well snap and Alibaba are making their own AI glasses.
At Google’s conference on Tuesday, product manager Nishtha Bhatia demonstrated using Audio Sunglasses to launch and connect to Gemini. door dash and order coffee. I also had my Gemini read a summary of my unread text messages and add events to my calendar.
Google said in a blog post that the glasses provide turn-by-turn instructions for navigation, and users can ask Gemini questions about everything they see. You can also take a photo and use Google’s AI image generation tool Nano Banana to “transform the image” with prompts like “Hey Google, take a photo and put a funny hat on everyone.”
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