What Can an AI Assistant In Smart Glasses Actually Do? What Can an AI Assistant In Smart Glasses Actually Do? 

Key takeaways

• Shipments of smart glasses with AI assistants surged in the first half of 2026
• IDC forecasts that shipments of audio-only smart glasses will reach approximately 13.6 units in 2026.
• AI assistants in smart glasses can interpret text, live translate, take photos hands free and offer turn-by-turn navigation

Why do some smart glasses have an AI assistant?

Smart glasses use an AI assistant to help you out when going about your daily life - allowing you to take pictures of things hands free, ask the glasses what you’re looking at and get instant insights, or just have access to the vast knowledge of AI with a single command or tap of a finger - all without taking out your phone.

The use of an AI assistant doesn’t stop there - you can use smart glasses with AI inside to access real time translation, navigate easily around a new city, help those with accessibility needs and even get access to multiple AI assistants in one pair of glasses.

Counterpoint Research says AI glasses shipments increased globally by 263% during the first half of 2026, highlighting the growth in interest in having regular access to AI assistants.

The same research showed that of those shipments, 96% were display-less - only focusing on audio transmission of AI assistance.

In short, by adding an AI assistant to smart glasses, you’re able to live life with your eyes facing forwards, rather than being glued to a phone screen.

Should I buy smart glasses with a display or audio only?

AI glasses come in two variants: with display, or audio-only. If you’re looking for something that can give you visual insights and augment your vision with more information, then AI glasses with displays are a good first choice.

However, the most popular type come without a display in the lenses. In 2026 analysts IDC forecast shipments for audio-only will reach approximately 13.6 million units in that period.

In the first three months of 2026 alone, IDC found that the sector surged 167% year-over-year in Q1 2026, reaching nearly 2.25 million units.

Audio-only AI glasses are great for those that don’t want to live life through technology, preferring to get the information delivered through their speakers, allowing them to stay concentrated on the world around them.

What is Multimodal vision and how does it work?

Multimodal vision can use an AI glasses camera to capture visual information about what you’re looking at and process that information using an AI assistant to provide relevant insights.

This can be done simply by saying a wake word, asking it to capture what’s being looked at, and hearing the information relayed back.

You can use this to find out more information about architecture, understand signs in different countries, or identify different kinds of plants or wildlife when out and about.

The speed of the response changes depending on the task. In the study ‘Intention-Aware Semantic Agent Communications for AI Glasses’, it showed how on-device processing, of things like text extraction or object recognition could be achieved in 10-60ms.

However, the research also showed that the answer time taken was when the cloud-based LLM needed reasoning, which pushed response times up to 1 second. 

Even if it takes this amount of time, the complex process of taking an image, uploading it to the AI assistant, having it analyzed and understood and the information sent back to your AI glasses is incredibly quick - especially when you consider how much processing is needed to give users this extra insight.

That’s why HTC VIVE Eagle has two modes - it answers simple questions on device, using an embedded LLM, but then hands off more complex queries through the phone to user’s selected cloud mode.

These research results are specific to the study and should not be understood as VIVE Eagle performance specifications.

AI glasses and real-time translation

AI assistants allow smart glasses users to be able to look at menus, signs or literature in another language and ask questions of the LLM when in another country.

Some AI glasses also come with a live translation feature - this is where the four pinhole microphones embedded within the frames can pick up speech and pass it back to the smartphone for translation, with the words repeated back to you in your native tongue.

Smart glasses support multiple languages using AI assistance - for instance, there are 96 supported for live translation under VIVE AI Pro (12 on the base VIVE AI Plus tier).

You can also use a dedicated smartphone app to show the translated text, if the other person is not wearing a pair of AI glasses - simply hold the phone up, tell them they can answer in their native tongue, and have a conversation with the words relayed into your ears.

Turn-by-turn navigation

AI glasses give turn-by-turn navigation by connecting to a mapping service and understanding which way to go in real time. This can be done as a basic outline of where to go, or provide richer, turn-by-turn navigation by using apps like Google Maps.

When you’re walking around a new city, you might need more than just translation: navigation to guide you to where you want to go.

If you’re constantly staring at your phone, that can distract from the beauty of your surroundings, whereas with AI glasses you’ve got multiple options for being able to find your way around. 

Audio navigation may reduce the need to repeatedly look down at a phone while walking, helping users keep their attention on their surroundings. Users should nevertheless remain alert to traffic, pedestrians, and other hazards and should not rely exclusively on navigation instructions. a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration highlighted that intersections “48% of cell phone users exhibited unsafe behaviors, compared to 25.3% of undistracted pedestrians”.

By being able to keep your eyes up and aware of their surroundings, rather than holding a phone, it can make users more aware of traffic.

If you’re wearing AI glasses with a display, turn by turn navigation can be displayed on a floating screen in front of you.

However, if you want to stay present and not feel bombarded by technology in your eyeline, then using audio-only glasses can still give you the navigation cues you need, but leave your eyes free to not live life peering through tech.

Helping with accessibility

Certain features available on smart AI glasses may provide useful functionality for people with vision, hearing, or other accessibility needs Given that, in 2020, there were an estimated 596 million people with distance vision impairment worldwide (according to the Lancet Global Health Commission on Global Eye Health), devices that can help people read text and describe scenes can be hugely valuable.

For example, depending on the device and supported features, AI-enabled smart glasses may be able to read text aloud, provide descriptions of surroundings, assist with object recognition, or display captions.

If the person has hearing difficulties, some smart glasses can display captions from a conversation in progress (if the glasses have a display embedded in the lenses).

Memory recall

The most advanced AI glasses on the market use AI assistants to remember key information, using the power of LLMs to store the details in the memory bank (VIVE Eagle does this while keeping it private to the user).

This works by calling up the local AI, telling it what you need to remember (such as the contents of a fridge, your parking place or a shopping list) and the AI assistant can save supported information for later retrieval.

You can also attach pictures to the memories to give further context and understanding of the detail - as well as voice recording notes to be saved into the same memory bank for further analysis later.

The importance of privacy

The most private AI glasses are made to prevent the onboard AI training on your data - so even if you’re sharing private information, the best smart spectacles will ensure that it’s kept there (and safely, with strong, industry-grade encryption).

VIVE AI, the LLM inside VIVE Eagle, is certified to ISO/IEC 27001 for information security management and ISO/IEC 27701 for privacy information management, and uses AES-256 encryption to protect things like your personal notes on the AI glasses themselves.

Where supported requests are processed using a third-party AI service, VIVE Eagle is designed to de-identify applicable data before transmission to reduce the amount of identifying information shared with the third-party service. Users should review the applicable privacy terms for additional information about how data is processed.

Can you have more than one AI assistant in smart glasses?

Some AI glasses provide access to more than one AI platform, giving users more options and the ability to use different AI services for supported tasks. Different LLMs can handle tasks in different ways, and people may have a preference for which model they use depending on the task.

AI integration varies by manufacturer. Some smart glasses primarily integrate with the manufacturer’s own AI ecosystem, while others provide users with access to multiple supported AI services.

VIVE Eagle combines VIVE AI with support for select third-party AI services, including OpenAI GPT and Google Gemini, giving users additional options for supported AI-powered tasks with applicable data de-identified before transmission to supported third-party AI services, consistent with VIVE Eagle’s applicable privacy and data-handling practices.

Hands free photo and video capture

A key advantage of AI glasses that come with a forward-facing camera is the ability to take photos and video without removing your phone from your pocket. Most devices have 12MP sensors, such as HTC VIVE Eagle and Meta Ray-Ban glasses - and offer 3K video recording.

The AI assistant allows you to capture the moment quickly, simply by using the voice commands on your AI glasses to take photos or video. You can do more complex things if you have an assistant onboard like Google Gemini - where you can ask it to take a photo using the rear- or front-facing camera and have it happen hands free.

How photos, videos, and other information are stored and processed varies by device and service. Depending on the product and features enabled, certain information may be stored locally or processed through cloud-based services, subject to the provider’s applicable privacy and data-use terms.

When choosing AI glasses, consider how the manufacturer handles your data, including whether information is processed locally or in the cloud, what information is shared with third-party AI services, applicable AI training policies, available privacy controls, and how stored and transmitted data is protected.

When using camera and recording features, users should respect the privacy of others and comply with applicable laws regarding photography, video, audio recording, and consent. Recording laws and requirements vary by location