For everything tech giants know about coding AI algorithms and developing super-efficient microchips, they know little about swag. (I mean, have you seen The Zuck’s streetwear glow-up? And the less said about Musk’s AI fashion show, the better.) So, when they want to sell people on camera-wielding glasses equipped with built-in artificial intelligence, they outsource the fashion design side of things. 

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has thus far cornered the market.

In 2019, Meta began its Ray-Ban partnership with re-engineered Wayfarers, the world’s most famous sunglasses company’s most popular model. Last year, it added an Oakley collaboration to its roster — Oakley and Ray-Ban are owned by the same company — playing the same trick with Oakley’s high-tech (and accidentally high-fashion) specs. Now, surprise competition is coming from Google and Samsung.

And with Apple rumored to be releasing its own glasses later this year, the market’s only getting more crowded.

While Meta opted to link with the biggest names in eyewear, Google and Samsung tapped Gentle Monster, the South Korean label that’s pushed the industry’s move into more experimental, sporty shapes, to create surprisingly excellent smart glasses.

The shades, releasing this fall, are an all-black cat-eye frame, pretty conservative stuff for the maker of mirrored cyborg glasses, but something entirely different for the world of previously un-swaggy smart sunnies. 

Samsung’s input is the two cameras discreetly placed on either side of the frames while Google brings its Gemini-powered AI assistance to the party, allowing the wearer to send messages, translate texts, or navigate without their phone. 

Basically, these do all the smart things that smart glasses are supposedly great for but are designed by the buzzy label making some of fashion’s weirdest eyewear bits. The AI glasses revolution is getting more stylish.

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