Snapchat Bets Future on AR Glasses, CEO Calls Spectacles Key to Company Survival
LOS ANGELES, CA – snapchat parent company Snap Inc. is staking its long-term future on the development and success of its augmented reality (AR) glasses, Spectacles, according to a recent open letter from CEO evan Spiegel.Spiegel asserts the need for the next generation of Spectacles is “urgent,” framing the device not as a peripheral product, but as essential to navigating a shifting technological landscape and avoiding intense competition in the smartphone market.
Spiegel highlighted the increasing amount of time people spend looking at screens – exceeding seven hours daily – and the transformative impact of artificial intelligence on work processes, moving from file and app management to agent supervision. He also noted the rising costs of physical product manufacturing.
The CEO envisions a future where ”physical products can be replaced by photons,” reducing waste and fostering a new digital economy.Snap aims to capitalize on this potential,differentiating its AR offering by prioritizing AI integration over simply replicating the smartphone experience.
“Spams is not forcibly put in today’s phone app in the glasses. It means a transition from the app paradigm to AI priority – personalized, contextually, shared experience,” spiegel wrote. He described potential applications including viewing 3D prototypes with colleagues, exploring biological concepts through virtual bodies, and interacting with friends’ physical spaces digitally.
Spiegel believes the Spectacles operating system will evolve to be “personalized with context and memory,” increasing in value over time. He defines the AR market as a “huge business opportunity,” capable of replacing multiple physical screens.
Snap faces fierce competition in the extended reality (XR) space from major tech companies including Meta, Google, Samsung, and Apple, all developing their own XR devices – encompassing mixed reality headsets like the meta quest 3 and Apple Vision Pro, smart glasses like Rayvan Metana and google Android XR Glass, and AR glasses like Meta’s Orion prototype.
To accelerate development, Snap plans to launch an internal ”accelerator-type association” comprised of 5-7 teams of 10-15 people, operating on a “90-day mission cycle” with “weekly demo days” and a culture that embraces rapid iteration and failure.
Spiegel concluded that Spectacles represent a path “beyond the limits of smartphones, beyond red ocean competition, to generations heading to human-centered computing.”