It may have taken more than a decade, but smart glasses are finally taking off. Sales of Meta Platforms’ Ray-Ban AI specs more than tripled last year to more than 7mn units. Yet shares in EssilorLuxottica, the €110bn Franco-Italian eyewear maker that makes the devices, have been falling. Squint a little, and that isn’t so strange after all.
It might seem like partnering with the Facebook owner on its next big thing is a win. After the false start of earlier models such as Google Glass, it’s now possible to see a future where smart eyewear — which allows consumers to receive notifications, access navigation and interact with AI from within their field of vision — could become ubiquitous. Smart glasses helped drive an 11 per cent increase in EssilorLuxottica’s sales in 2025.