Google and Samsung Are Building AR Glasses to Take on Meta and Apple

Google has partnered with a company called XREAL to build augmented reality glasses — devices that overlay digital information onto what you see in the real world. At the same time, Google is working with Samsung to create consumer-friendly AR glasses that could reach the market by fall 2026. Together, these moves represent Google's bid to establish itself as a major player in augmented reality, competing against Meta and eventually Apple.

What These AR Glasses Actually Do

XREAL's Project Aura is a tethered device, meaning it needs to stay connected to a powerful computer to work. It runs on Google's new Android XR operating system, which is built specifically for augmented reality.

The glasses have a 70-degree field of view, which is tech speak for how much of your surroundings you can see through the display. That's substantially larger than most AR glasses attempted for everyday consumers. To put it simply: imagine a pair of glasses that lets you see the physical world around you while also showing you digital information — directions on a street, workspace documents floating in front of you, or instructions overlaid on a machine you're repairing. A wider field of view means more of your peripheral vision gets this treatment, which makes the experience feel less like looking through a small window and more like an actual pair of glasses.

These glasses don't need a smartphone to run. They have their own computing power built in. That cuts down latency — the delay between what you do and what the glasses display — which has been a persistent problem with earlier AR attempts.

Google's Broader Strategy

The XREAL partnership is just one part of Google's larger augmented reality plan. Google has also teamed up with Samsung, along with eyewear makers Warby Parker and Gentle Monster, to build consumer AR glasses aimed at release in fall 2026. More advanced models with built-in displays are planned for 2027.

This multi-partner approach is different from how Google handled earlier wearable devices. With Google Glass years ago, Google tried to design and build the whole product itself. This time, the company is working with manufacturers and fashion brands that already know how to make everyday eyewear. That matters. One of the biggest reasons AR glasses haven't taken off yet is simple: people don't want to wear something that looks ugly or feels awkward.

The staggered timeline suggests Google is thinking carefully about how quickly people will adopt this technology. The first glasses in 2026 will likely focus on simple features — voice commands, notifications, and basic digital overlays. More sophisticated visual features will come later, once people are already comfortable wearing them.

Why Android XR Matters

Google is building something called Android XR to run on these devices. If you use an Android phone, you know Android already. Now Google is trying to make a version designed for augmented reality headsets, the way it once adapted Android for phones and smartwatches.

The challenge is that AR glasses need specially designed applications, unlike a smartphone where you can get by with basic calling and texting. AR needs software built specifically for spatial computing — applications designed to work in three dimensions around you, not just on a flat screen. Whether developers will create enough of these applications quickly enough will largely determine whether this whole ecosystem succeeds or fails.

We have seen this pattern before in technology. When Windows Mobile phones held a strong share of the business market, people thought they would naturally become the leading consumer phone platform too. That did not happen. iOS and Android took over instead. The lesson: just because you lead in one market does not mean you will lead in the next technology shift. For Google, success will depend on getting both the technology right and launching at the moment when people are actually ready to buy.

How This Stacks Up Against the Competition

Meta, the company behind Facebook, has been working on its own AR device called Orion. Meta has spent tens of billions of dollars on this effort — over $58 billion invested since 2019 — without a consumer product yet.

Apple has not announced any AR plans yet, but the company's history suggests it will enter this market eventually, likely with premium-priced glasses that work seamlessly with iPhones and other Apple devices.

The broader context here is that Google's strategy of partnering with multiple hardware makers, rather than building everything itself, may work better for reaching a broad audience than Meta's approach of building its own device. For businesses deciding whether to invest in AR, having multiple choices from different manufacturers matters. Companies typically prefer working with several suppliers rather than betting everything on one company's platform, especially for new technology categories where it is unclear which company will be around in five years.

Google seems to believe that people are becoming ready to adopt AR faster than most people think. By offering both high-end tethered devices like Project Aura and consumer-friendly untethered glasses, Google is hedging its bets — appealing to professionals and everyday users at the same time.

What Comes Next

Whether this plan works depends on two things: software and usefulness. The most promising applications for AR right now are remote collaboration — having an expert appear to help you fix something miles away — industrial maintenance, and spatial design. Google's partnerships may give the company a better path to building this software and selling it to businesses than smaller companies could manage.

The timeline is ambitious. Having consumer glasses available by fall 2026 is sooner than many industry observers expected. That either means Google is very confident the technology is ready, or the company feels pressure to establish its position before Meta and Apple move further ahead. Probably both.

For anyone tracking this space, the next two years will matter enormously. How well Project Aura's business pilots perform, and how well Samsung's consumer glasses sell, will tell us a lot about whether augmented reality is finally moving from experimental technology to something people actually use every day.