Sergey Brin, the most responsible man in Google Glass, is out of retirement and back to the company he co -founded, helping to make AI occur. It also praises a new type of “glass” or, more specifically, intelligent Android XR glasses while admitting big scalpks from Google Glass.
Brin went on stage unexpectedly to Google I / O 2025 for an Alex Kantrowitz from Sitdown with Big Technology and Demis Hassabis, CEO of Deepmind. While the discussion was mainly around Gemini, the platform generating Google AI, Kantrowitz asked Brin what he had learned from the Google Glass experience and how he could apply it to the modern Android XR project.
With the counterpart candor, Brin told Kantrowitz: “I really feel like I made a lot of mistakes with Google Glass, I’m going to be honest.”
It is completely the admission of strand, which more than a decade ago was the biggest Google Glass champion and welcomed a launch in a memorable way with parachutists of combination of wings which jumped from a plane while carrying Google Glass. It was a spectacular moment, but even there, Brin now sees a defect and how it could avoid a similar misstep.
Speaking of how much he missed this great launch moment, Brin turned his attention to the launch of the new XR glasses. “Maybe … we should probably polish the product this time, when it is ready and available, then we will make a really cool demo. So it’s probably an intelligent decision.”
Brin can see the imperfections and the ultimate failure of Google Glass, the first portable intelligent glasses that allow you to use gestures, head inclinations and even blinks to take a photo, but there was a moment between 2012 and 2014, when Google Glass was everywhere.
I brought my pair to a fashion show and these, and on many networked television shows. Strand was spotted in the metro with his. They were, for a certain time, a cultural phenomenon, but also ridiculous, almost as quickly enters the “glass holes” memes.
It would be cool if this guy goes back to #googleio. It comes from ten years ago (at another event) when Sergey showed me how to take a selfie with Google Glass Pic.twitter.com/y0zlrmyr5cMay 14, 2024
However, I appreciated the enthusiasm of Brin, and when I met him more than a decade ago, while carrying Google Glass, of course, he graciously took the time to show me how you could take a selfie with Google Glass (yes, it involved removing them from your face).
The glass suffered from the start of availability and pricing problems ($ 1,500 / £ 1,000, or around $ 2,000 in) and the strand indicates its naivety as a cause: “I simply knew nothing about the chains of consumer electronic supply, and how much it will help us build this and do it.”
The point here is that instead of trying Google to understand all this, he now has companies like Samsung, Gentle Monster and Warby Parker, all experts in the construction of consumer products, supply chains and retail prices, building Android XR glasses for them.
AI will make the difference clear
Google Glass passed out in ignominy, but Brin sees Google’s return to smart glasses under a new light, and it’s mainly because of its new pet project at Google: AI and Gemini.
Aside from the form factor, which did not look like normal glasses, Google Glass could have been ahead of its time. They were “intelligent” without really having real intelligence.
“Now in the AI world,” said strand, “the things that these glasses can do to help you without constantly distracting you, this capacity is much higher.” And that potentially makes interaction with Android XR glasses much more natural. This is also why Google and its partners put Gemini at the center of these Android XR portable devices.
Finally, Hassabis, who had looked at all the exchange, sounded: “I have the impression that the universal assistant is the Killer application for smart glasses, and I think that is what will make it work.”
All this makes sense; A powerful resident of AI seated on your face in a familiar form factor that requires nothing more than voice commands to make your auctions, but which can also look and act in your name. It is the future of intelligent glasses, and the one to which Google Glass suited but never realized.
The Android XR glasses will be the second act of smart glasses of strand and, perhaps, the one of which he will ultimately be better known.
