Snapchat Bets Future โon AR Glasses, CEO Calls Spectacles โKey to Companyโฃ Survival
LOS ANGELES, CA – snapchat parent companyโ Snap Inc. is staking its long-term future on the developmentโข and successโฃ of its augmented realityโ (AR)โ glasses, Spectacles, accordingโ to a recent open letter from CEO evan Spiegel.Spiegel asserts the โneed for theโข next generation of Spectacles is “urgent,” framing โคthe device not as a peripheral product, but as essential to navigating a shifting technological landscapeโฃ and avoiding intense competition in the smartphone market.
Spiegel highlighted the โincreasing amount of โฃtime people spend looking atโ screens – exceeding seven hours dailyโ – and the transformative impact of artificialโฃ intelligence on workโ processes, moving fromโ file and app management to agent supervision. He also noted the rising costs of physical product manufacturing.
The CEO envisions a future where โค”physical products can be replaced by photons,” reducing waste andโ fostering a new digital economy.Snap aims to capitalize โon this potential,differentiating its AR offering by prioritizing AI integration over simply replicating the smartphone experience.
“Spams is not forcibly put โคin today’s phone appโ in the glasses.โ It means a transition fromโฃ the app paradigm to AI priority – personalized, contextually, shared experience,” spiegel wrote. He described potential applicationsโ includingโค viewing 3D prototypes with โขcolleagues, exploring biological concepts through virtual bodies, and interacting with friends’ physical spaces digitally.
Spiegel believes the Spectaclesโ operating system will evolve to be “personalized withโ context โand memory,”โ increasing in valueโค over time. He defines the AR market โas a “huge business opportunity,” capable of replacing multiple physical screens.
Snap facesโ fierce competition in the extended reality โ(XR) space from major tech companies including Meta, Google, Samsung, and Apple, all developing โtheir own XR devices – encompassing mixed reality headsets like the meta quest 3 and Apple Vision Pro, smart glasses like Rayvanโค Metana and google Android XR Glass, and AR glassesโฃ like Meta’s Orion prototype.
To accelerate development, Snap plans to โlaunch an internal โข”accelerator-type association” comprised of 5-7 teams of 10-15 people, operating on a “90-day mission cycle” withโค “weekly demo days” and a culture that embraces rapid iteration and failure.
Spiegel โconcluded that Spectacles represent a pathโ “beyond the limits of smartphones, โฃbeyond redโ ocean competition, to generations heading to human-centered computing.”