• Google launched Android XR, a platform for AI-powered smart glasses and headsets.
• Glasses feature cameras, audio, and in-lens displays for hands-free use.
• Partnerships with fashion brands and Samsung target stylish XR devices by 2025.

Google is making a massive promotion for wearable technology with its new platform, Android XR, introduced recently at the Google I/O developer conference. Android XR targets smart-glasses and headset-like extended reality (XR) devices and features Gemini AI to provide a seamless and intelligent experience meshing the physical and digital worlds.

Building on the presence of Gemini on Android phones, TVs, watches, and car displays, Google wants to bring in an assistant that works hands-free, understands, and responds to your real-world environment in real time.

The keynote gave a preview of smart glasses under Android XR having the full complement of cameras, microphones, and speakers. The glasses interact with the smartphone to bring app functionality, turn-by-turn navigation, live translations, and more, so you no longer have to pull your phone out.

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The in-lens display is optional and was a highlight, giving private, contextually aware information powered by Gemini’s multimodal AI. According to Google, the AI will see and hear as the user does, and thus assist throughout the day by remembering and understanding context. Real-time translations with subtitles on the glasses were demonstrated live, aimed at overcoming everyday language barriers.

In an attempt to make them appealing outside of the tech world, Google revealed its collaboration with fashion-worthy eyewear partners Gentle Monster, Warby Parker, and Kering Eyewear toward the design of Android XR-compatible glasses.

A few years ago, it was merely a dream alongside Samsung and Qualcomm; Android XR was already being thought about for immersive headsets like Samsung's Project Moohan, slated for a 2025 release. Now, collaborations have extended to smart glasses with a shared hardware and software platform for developers. Android XR developer tools will be launched later this year, marking Google's ambitious stride into the future of spatial computing.

Google said, "We’re building glasses you’ll actually want to wear all day".