New Google Provides a New Look at Forthcoming Android XR Glasses

What Happened?

During Google’s I/O 2025, which is the company’s annual developers conference, Google provided a new look at their forthcoming XR Android smart glasses. XR is a term that refers to extended reality, which is an umbrella term including elements of virtual reality and augmented reality. 

Google revealed that their forthcoming XR smart glasses have Gemini at their core. Gemini is Google’s artificial intelligence system that will serve as an operating system for the new glasses. Though Google has not yet announced a release date, the company has hinted the new smart glasses could be available in late 2025 or early 2026. 

Why it Matters

Google is pitching its Gemini powered smart glasses as rivals to Meta products including the Quest virtual reality headsets and Meta’s own smart glasses. The market for smart glasses is currently estimated to be worth six billion U.S. dollars globally each year, a figure that is expected to double in the next decade. 

Virtual reality technology offers users the opportunity for an immersive visual experience normally accessed by using a headset. But while wearing a VR headset, the user is unable to see their actual physical surroundings. Augmented reality (AR) by contrast involves using smart glasses which allow the user to still see their physical surroundings, but with images projected onto their surroundings on the lens. 

For users, the difference is enormous. Where VR is a separate experience from the physical world, AR allows users to blend the real and virtual worlds into one seamless visual experience. XR or extended reality combines some aspects of both by projecting digital images onto what a person sees around them through smart glasses. 

According to TechRadar, particularly on the glasses, this completely hands-free approach – combined with cameras and a head-up display – looks to be Google Gemini in its most useful form. For example, on-glasses-Gemini can recommend you a place to eat then offer you on-screen directions to where to find it. It can perform live-translations, and on a headset it can use Google Maps' immersive view to virtually transport you to any destination you request.

Google has several notable partners in its XR Android program. Among them are Samsung, Qualcomm, and Xreal, each of which support or make different components of the forthcoming Google smart glasses. 

By providing users with hands-free and wearable devices that have Gemini built in, Google is providing a product that will enable the tech giant to mass market a practical way to use AI in everyday life.

How it Affects You

The sneak peak at XR Android is good news for consumers because it means another type of potentially high-quality smart glasses will be on the market within the next year. The design of Google XR also suggests that hands-free access to smart phone capabilities could be the wave of the future for wearable technology.