Apple Reportedly Developing AI Smart Glasses to Launch Next Year, Targeting Meta’s Ray-Bans

Apple is reportedly preparing to enter the AI smart glasses market with its own device slated for launch next year, according to a recent report from Bloomberg. This move would see Apple compete directly with existing products like the Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses and represents a significant step in the company’s broader push into wearable artificial intelligence, a key theme at its ongoing Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2025.

While Apple is arriving later to this category than some rivals, its potential entry is generating significant excitement due to the company’s history of refining and redefining product categories through deep ecosystem integration.

Rumored Features and Capabilities

According to the Bloomberg report, Apple’s AI smart glasses will be equipped with cameras, microphones, and speakers, similar to Meta’s current offering. The core functionality is expected to be driven by AI, with features including:

• Siri Access: Hands-free interaction with a more advanced, context-aware version of Apple’s voice assistant.
• Visual Intelligence: The ability for the glasses to understand and provide information about what the user is seeing.
• Communication: Integrated support for making and receiving phone calls.
• Audio Playback: Functionality to play music, likely using open-ear style speakers for situational awareness.
• Live Translation: Real-time translation of conversations.
• Turn-by-Turn Directions: Audio-based navigation prompts.
• Custom Silicon: The glasses are expected to be powered by a new, custom-designed Apple chip optimized for AI tasks and power efficiency.

Potential to Outclass Existing Offerings

While Meta’s Ray-Bans have proven the concept of camera-equipped glasses for taking quick photos, videos, and asking basic AI questions, Apple has the opportunity to innovate in several key areas. Observers and potential users have highlighted specific features that could make Apple’s offering a more compelling product:

1. Deep Siri Integration and Personal Context: Unlike Meta AI, which lacks deep integration with a user’s personal data, an Apple device could leverage Siri’s access to contacts, calendars, messages, and other on-device information. This would allow for a truly personalized AI assistant that understands a user’s life and routines, enabling much more useful hands-free interactions without needing to pull out an iPhone.
2. Higher Quality Cameras: A common critique of existing smart glasses is the mediocre quality of their cameras, which often produce soft, heavily processed images and videos. Apple, with its strong reputation for mobile imaging technology, could easily set a new standard for camera quality in a glasses form factor.
3. Advanced Notification Management: While Meta’s glasses offer some notification features on Android, iOS integration is limited. Apple is uniquely positioned to integrate its smart glasses with its ecosystem-wide Focus Modes. This could allow users to create highly customized notification filters, ensuring only the most important alerts (e.g., from specific apps like Messages or from priority contacts) are read aloud, making the glasses a more useful and less intrusive daily companion.

The “Ecosystem” as a Key Advantage

Ultimately, the biggest value proposition for Apple’s smart glasses will likely be their seamless integration with the iPhone and the broader Apple ecosystem. The ability for the glasses to work in perfect concert with a user’s phone, watch, and other devices could create a user experience that standalone products from competitors cannot match.

As Apple continues to build out its “Apple Intelligence” platform, a pair of smart glasses could serve as a natural, ambient interface for this new AI-first ecosystem. While details on pricing and final design remain speculative, the prospect of Apple entering this space signals a new and exciting chapter in the evolution of wearable technology.