By Danielle Kaye
NEW YORK, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Warby Parker is entering the smart glasses market in partnership with Google and Samsung, betting that demand for the artificial intelligence wearables will balloon in the coming years.
But the New York-based fashion brand, known for its affordable eyewear, is also seeking to head off privacy concerns that have weighed on existing producers of the glasses, most of which embed small cameras allowing wearers to record their surroundings without taking out their phone.
The Warby Parker glasses are broadly similar to Meta smart glasses already available from Ray-Ban and Oakley maker EssilorLuxottica, which have faced regulatory scrutiny from Norway to Australia. Also like the Meta glasses, they will connect to an AI assistant, in this case Google's Gemini, for everything from directions to language translation.
The big difference from existing versions on the market is the privacy framework embedded in the glasses from the outset, Warby Parker Co-CEO Neil Blumenthal told Reuters.
Alphabet's Google will not use visuals captured with the glasses to train its AI. The glasses will bar facial recognition of bystanders. And a small white notification light on the front of the glasses automatically turns on when a user starts recording video.
Shoppers will start placing pre-orders from Warby Parker on Thursday. Ray-Ban's Meta glasses still dominate, representing 81.3% of AI glasses shipments in the first half of this year, according to tech research group Omdia.
But brands from Warby Parker to luxury group Kering — poised to release glasses also in partnership with Google — are looking to gain a foothold. Global AI glasses shipments more than doubled in the first half of 2026 from a year ago, though growth has slowed since the second half of last year, Omdia data shows.
Meta's AI glasses also include a camera notification light on the front, a Meta spokesperson said, adding that input from safety experts helped inform the privacy features on its glasses.
CATEGORY CONFRONTS PRIVACY RISKS
Optimism that Warby Parker's "intelligent eyewear" plan will prove to be a major growth engine has helped its shares rally by nearly 40% this year, outperforming a 10% gain in the S&P 500.
The company expects an addition of several percentage points to fourth-quarter revenue growth from the new wearable technology, executives said on an earnings call earlier this month.
"As long as the tools provide utility to customers, then we'll be successful," Blumenthal said.
While the core optical backdrop remains soft, smart glasses are poised to be an "increasingly important driver" of Warby Parker's growth outlook, analysts at TD Cowen wrote in a research note last week.
Still, concerns about privacy could slow their pace of growth. One of Britain's biggest pub chains has restricted the use of the frames, Norway's government is planning a temporary ban on the use of AI glasses in certain locations, and Australia is considering barring the use of camera-equipped smart glasses in government workplaces.
GOOGLE AIMS TO REBUILD TRUST
Juston Payne, who leads extended reality products at Google, acknowledged that public skepticism could be a risk to growth.
"This is an area where, understandably, trust was lost," he told Reuters at a demo for the Warby Parker glasses in New York.
Google says it will embed extensive privacy guardrails into the devices to prevent tampering with the recording indicator light; redact people's faces from video footage before it is sent to Gemini; and ban targeted advertising on the glasses.
"We are going to change this conversation," Payne said. "We are trying to raise the bar."
But it remains to be seen whether those measures will ease concern about widespread surveillance, if the glasses become ubiquitous.
"I'm certainly happy to hear that (video footage is) not automatically fed into AI systems for training," said Calli Schroeder, who leads the AI and human rights program at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, an advocacy group. "But that still leaves open: a stranger has footage of my kid on their phone. That's concerning no matter how you phrase it."
(Reporting by Danielle Kaye in New York; Editing by Christian Plumb and Matthew Lewis)
