The news: Meta purchased a $3.51 billion stake in eyewear maker EssilorLuxottica, signaling its long-term commitment to AI-powered smart glasses. It now holds about a 3% share but is considering a larger investment that would increase its share to 5%, per Bloomberg. EssilorLuxottica’s stock rose about 6% Wednesday after the announcement. Our take: Marketers should view smart glasses as more than a casual consumer device. Start developing internal tools such as training and simulation applications and user-facing offerings like personalized experiences and voice-activated product walkthroughs.

The news: The AR and VR headset market is rebounding, led by Meta’s success. Global headset shipments grew 18.1% YoY in Q1 2025, per the International Data Corporation’s (IDC) Augmented and Virtual Reality Headset Tracker. Meta held a 50.8% market share, up from 36.2% in Q1 2024, cementing its role as an industry leader but indicating the market could be reliant on a single player. Our take: Brands should make content that’s adaptable to both headsets and smart glasses to accommodate changing consumer interests. Investing in glasses-centric content can target consumers, while MR activations could be ideal for enterprise use cases such as training employees.

AR/VR continues to evolve as a tool for marketers and retailers to develop deeper consumer engagement. Long-term growth will be helped by AI integrations and demographic shifts. And while gaming is still the top use case, smart glasses are on the rise.

As Vision Pro stumbles, Apple is plotting a comeback with AI-ready, fashion-forward glasses—powered by custom chips and its unbeatable dev ecosystem.

Wearables will surpass 100 million users this year as AI advancements push adoption to nearly 40% of adults, marking a shift from niche tech to mainstream.

Smart glasses will likely steal the show as neural tech fuels the convergence of wearables and spatial computing.

With GPT-4 features, privacy options, and a price under $150, Solos’ AirGo Vision glasses dare to unseat Ray-Ban Meta as the go-to wearable for tech lovers.

AI will become deeply woven into daily life in 2025. Autonomous agents, smart devices, AR glasses, search engines, and digital twins are making AI an ambient presence in how we work, shop, browse, and interact with the world.

Google, Samsung, and Qualcomm aim for mass appeal with AI smart glasses: Streamlined genAI eyewear offers a stylish alternative to clunky headsets and expensive standalone devices.

Last week, EssilorLuxottica, parent company of Ray-Ban and other eyewear brands, announced the acquisition of streetwear brand Supreme from VF Corporation. It’s a strange move for EssilorLuxottica.

Meta is making a modest step into physical retail: Facebook’s parent company is opening a store on its Burlingame, California, campus to let consumers try its metaverse hardware products.

On today's episode, we discuss how travel is changing, how the overall Olympic ratings shook out, why your inbox is now a shopping mall, how brands are already marketing to Generation Alpha, Facebook's Ray-Ban smart glasses, how the office came to be, the limitless power of hugs, and more. Tune in to the discussion with eMarketer principal analysts at Insider Intelligence Jillian Ryan, Nicole Perrin, and Paul Verna.