Do you rarely use the growing number of AI features being built into your phone? Would you use them more if you were wearing them on your face?
What happened: Caitlin Kalinowski — who has been working on hardware at Meta for nine years and led the team that made the head-turning Orion AR glasses prototype — jumped ship to OpenAI as the startup builds out its hardware and robotics teams.
- Former Apple exec Jony Ive said in September that he was working with OpenAI on hardware that would be “less socially disruptive than the iPhone” — which may or may not be code for “something you wear on your face.”
Zoom out: Apple has reportedly begun running internal focus groups with staff to get their feelings on smart glasses as it mulls building its own version, though it would be years before something hits the market.
Catch-up: Meta admitted Orion was too expensive to produce and would stay a prototype until it was cheaper to manufacture, it gave a glimpse at what several companies see as the tech gadget of the future: a fully wearable, always on display, enhanced by generative AI.
Why it matters: Past attempts at smart glasses failed to take off — looking at you, Google Glass — but an on-board AI assistant that can tap into its features with a voice command makes them much more functional. And that might not only help smart glasses finally take off, but wrap AI in a package people might want to use more than a chatbot.
Yes, but: If OpenAI isn’t making glasses, the fate of other AI-first gadgets don’t paint an optimistic picture, whether it’s the underwhelming Rabbit R1 or the borderline disastrous Humane AI Pin.