Smart Eyewear & AI

Smart eyewear is no longer a futuristic concept. From Ray-Ban Meta glasses to advanced AR display systems and enterprise-grade industrial eyewear, AI-powered glasses are rapidly becoming the next major computing platform. In this episode, Gary and Scott dive into how smart eyewear is transforming the way we work, communicate, navigate, and interact with the physical world. 

We break down where the technology stands today, the breakthrough use cases unfolding in consumer and enterprise environments, and how AI is turning ordinary glasses into contextual, multimodal assistants that can interpret the world in real time. 

Then we go deeper. CIOs, CTOs, and digital leaders will get a full technical walkthrough of how smart eyewear integrates into an enterprise tech stack — including identity, zero-trust security, backend APIs, data governance, edge vs. cloud AI, workflow orchestration, networking requirements, and build-vs-buy considerations. If your organization is planning pilots or evaluating AR/AI wearables, this segment provides the architecture-level clarity most companies are missing. 

We also unpack the privacy, legal, and ethical challenges of putting a camera and an AI agent two inches from the human eye — from workplace monitoring to bystander consent to accessibility and equitable deployment. 

Whether you’re a business leader exploring AI transformation, a technologist thinking about new platforms, or just curious where everyday computing is headed, this is a must-listen conversation. 

Topics covered include: 
• The evolution of smart eyewear and why adoption is accelerating 
• Real consumer and enterprise use cases already delivering ROI 
• How AI is shifting glasses from passive cameras to active “perceptual agents” 
• Technical architecture for enterprise integration 
• Data protection, identity, and zero-trust considerations 
• Privacy, surveillance, and ethical implications 
• What the next 3–7 years of wearable AI will look like 

Smart eyewear isn’t a gadget — it’s the beginning of a new interface era. 

About your AI Guides

Gary Sloper

https://www.linkedin.com/in/gsloper/

Scott Bryan

https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottjbryan/

Macro AI Website:

https://www.macroaipodcast.com/

Macro AI LinkedIn Page:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/macro-ai-podcast/

Gary's Free AI Readiness Assessment:

https://macronetservices.com/events/the-comprehensive-guide-to-ai-readiness

Scott's Content & Blog

https://www.macronomics.ai/blog

Transcript

00:00
Welcome to the Macro AI Podcast,  where your expert guides Gary Sloper and Scott Bryan navigate the ever-evolving world of artificial intelligence.  Step into the future with us  as we uncover how AI is revolutionizing the global business landscape  from nimble startups to Fortune 500 giants.  Whether you're a seasoned executive,  an ambitious entrepreneur,

00:27
or simply eager to harness AI's potential,  we've got you covered.  Expect actionable insights,  conversations with industry trailblazers  and service providers,  and proven strategies to keep you ahead in a world being shaped rapidly by innovation.  Gary and Scott are here to decode the complexities of AI  and to bring forward ideas that can transform cutting-edge technology  into real-world business success.

00:57
So join us,  let's explore, learn  and lead together.  Welcome back to the Macro AI Podcast, where we break down the rapidly changing world of artificial intelligence and what it means for business leaders, builders, and just about anyone curious about where the technology is taking us. I'm Gary. And I'm Scott.  And today we're talking about something you might've already been seeing out in the world. And that's normal looking eyeglasses that are really

01:24
turning into one of the most important AI interfaces since the smartphone. That's right, smart eyewear. Not the Google Glass era, not sci-fi goggles. I'm talking about stylish, wearable, AI-powered glasses.  From Ray-Ban Meta to AR display glasses like X-Real, which is spelled X-R-E-A-L, that are becoming new computing platforms. Yeah, and these things aren't,  they're not just...

01:52
gimmicks, they're actually being used. uh So not just out in the general public, but they're being used in uh warehouses, hospitals, factories, logistic centers, and even by  creators and travelers out there every day.  And because they're paired with today's  powerful AI tools that have really, really developed over the last few years, they're starting to become, uh they're starting to really actually understand what you're looking at.

02:20
So today we're going to deep dive into where the technology is right now, real use cases,  where it's going, the risks, and ethical questions. And we'll do a full technical deep dive for CIOs and business leaders who want to understand how to integrate smart eyewear into their enterprise stack.

02:44
Yeah, so ah I'll just uh just go right into a scenario. uh So say you're walking through Logan Airport, no phone in your hand.  You glance towards your gate in your glasses,  just put up a little green indicator with a check mark in it. It says, you know, you're on time, you're boarding in 12 minutes, and you didn't have to pull out an app or look at your phone. uh It's as easy as that.  And then it  then the your glasses can whisper into your ear.

03:14
Your daughter just scored in her lacrosse game. You want to see the clip  and  you can nod your head up and down and suddenly it's, you know, playing that clip in the, corner of your vision. So this is, this isn't something that's happening in the future. This is actually here today and it's, moving really fast and it's a, it's a lot more interesting than the tech from, you know, 10 years ago with Google Glass. Yeah. I remember, I remember using that uh several years ago. was a little cumbersome, but it was interesting. I mean,

03:43
I think the shift is that these glasses aren't just capturing video as you were alluding to. They're running artificial intelligence. They're analyzing scenes. They're translating languages, reading documents to you, guiding workers through tasks. And all of this is happening through glasses that look like fashionable glasses. Yeah. So let's just kind of level set it. The smart eyewear category is a big umbrella.

04:11
So at the simplest sound, you've got the Ray-Ban Meta glasses and they look like normal sunglasses, but they have a camera, microphone, speakers, and a built-in AI assistant. So you can say things like, you know, hey Meta, what am I looking at? Or translate the sign or live stream your point of view to Instagram. And they're actually, they're pretty subtle and pretty cool. Yeah. And you know, then there are the...

04:37
AR display glasses like X-Real AR2 mentioned a little while ago. They're not  just there to show holograms over your living room just yet, but they do  project a kind of a huge virtual monitor right in front of your eyes, which is great for traveling or people, you know, working on the go. So it's to make your other tasks a little bit more simpler and also to be kind of working together. So it's really interesting.

05:05
Yeah. And then you've got a  lot of developments happening on the business side, the enterprise side. uh So industrial  augmented reality glasses used in logistics,  manufacturing, utilities, field service, healthcare, a lot of different applications. And these are really built for durability and hands-free workflows for the business. Yeah. And I'd say the  final one is assistive smart glasses like Envision. I think these are pretty interesting that, you you could have a use case that

05:35
could help blind or low vision users navigate the world. They can read documents out loud, identify objects, describe scenes around them, and even tell them  where a doorway or a stairway might be. So it's definitely uh something that could be very impactful to a certain group of individuals. Yeah, a of cool applications there for assistive smart glasses.  overall, the category is incredibly diverse. uh

06:04
But the through line is the same,  real  time AI um that  they're paired for  with first person sensing. Yeah. Yeah. And I think for anybody that was familiar with, we talked about Google Glass prior, there may be some skeptics saying,  what the technology can do right now, kind of show me. And the hardware has caught up to the vision. So Ray-Ban Meta's  newest glasses  have high resolution cameras.

06:34
directional audio. So you, you only hear it and, battery life that holds up for a normal day of use. Um, and they can, and they sell out people love the form factor. They're stylish. Uh, they don't look like something out of, uh, know, 2001 space Odyssey. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the, I think the real leap, uh, with the glasses now is in the software.

06:57
So you can ask Meta's glasses, we talked about, know, what building is this? It'll analyze the scene, run a multimodal model and respond naturally to you. And then the accessibility devices, like we talked about with Envision, can read entire printed documents and answer questions about them. Yeah. And the enterprise use cases are even more advanced in some areas and warehouses, glasses guide workers, shelf to shelf.

07:25
you know, allows them to verify items with visual AI,  hopefully to reduce errors, especially in picking and packing orders and manufacturing, they display digital work instructions and healthcare surgeons  can view imaging without looking away from the patient. So a lot of, you know, kind of interesting use cases there from an enterprise standpoint. Yeah. Yeah. Really cool. You can kind of feel the transition coming to

07:52
to other surfaces.  like right now,  your face wearing glasses is  a really rapidly involving uh surface for artificial intelligence. uh So Gary, let's jump into a few uh real world use cases. Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, on the consumer side, know, creators love these glasses because you can live stream or record without holding a phone. ah So the POV content is immersive and authentic.

08:20
and probably has a little less shaking than if you were holding a phone or sticking your arm out. So it's a little bit more balanced that way. Yeah, and for a lot of, you'll see these a lot when you're traveling. So travelers really, they really like these applications. So like we talked about, translation is a killer app. You look at a menu in say Italy and you just ask, what does this say? And the glasses will translate it instantly for you.

08:49
Yeah, that's pretty, pretty cool. And, and getting back to the enterprise side, we talked about warehouses,  um, just a few minutes ago, and I think this is where things are going to start getting serious. Warehouses are reporting double digit productivity gains,  um, in field service, uh, like in a telecom circuit installation, for example, experts can annotate what a technician is seeing real time, uh, in manufacturing team C.

09:15
you know, really fewer errors because instructions float exactly where the worker needs them. Yeah, information uh right to your right to the screen in front of your eyes. Right.  And then so the accessibility use cases, I think are really one of the more inspiring ones. So people who  couldn't read mail or navigate public spaces independently, they can they can now do that with smart eyewear. And it's it's really  becoming an assistive infrastructure.

09:45
Yeah, completely agree. And so if we were to kind of take this down another level, kind of do a technical deep dive, I'm sure you're all wondering, you know, how smart glasses actually fit into the enterprise stack. So if we were talking to CIOs or CTOs and technical leaders for a moment, just because this is an area that you're probably most interested in, how that fits in your organization, because deploying smart eyewear in the enterprise is not as simple as

10:13
you know, handing out glasses like branded swag, um, that you would at a company event. These devices have to touch  your identity systems, your API's your governance, which we talked about  about in the last show, you know,  also your network infrastructure and obviously your, your, your AI architecture. So it needs to touch everything. So it's not just again, just handing these out to the employees. Yeah. So there are a lot of applications out there, but your, company really has to

10:42
You can't underestimate the complexity. So when you deploy smart glasses, you're basically adding a new computing surface and one that sees and hears everything. You need  to integrate that safely and intelligently into your stack. Yeah. And so again, digging further into this a little bit, most smart glasses aren't doing the real compute themselves. So that's probably a question that you're probably wondering. They're capturing video or audio and passing that to a paired device.

11:12
or the cloud. Yeah. So say you pair it to your phone or something like that to get to get internet access or use IOT. uh But you can think, think of the glasses as sensors with a display. So  a worker looks at a valve and says, you know, identify this  and the glasses capture an image and then a model either running on uh in the cloud or at the edge or on a private hosted model that does the hard work. And then the answer comes back as an overlay or an audio.

11:42
And then behind that you have authentication, encryption, API calls, workflow routing, all happening in seconds or milliseconds. Right. And so as you get to the integration layer, that's really where the real work happens. So here's where enterprises really spend time. You're connecting the glasses to your real systems, as you were just mentioning, and going a little bit deeper. It could be connecting into things such as SAP.

12:10
Oracle, ServiceNow, Epic, Salesforce, ah especially for custom manufacturing databases. So that's where you'll start  focusing on the integration piece. Yeah. And you can't just dump a full PDF manual into someone's field of vision. Right. So  the backend systems  have to break these instructions into what are called micro steps. So tiny content blocks that the glasses can render cleanly and

12:39
you know, read them so people can read it.  Um, and that means you need an API gateway, a workflow engine, or maybe even a content transformation layer so that it can be readable on the glasses. Yeah. My luck, the PDF manual will get dumped into my glasses in a different language.  Um, so  I'd be completely lost. Please translate. Yeah, exactly. So if your enterprise apps  are not API friendly, smart eyewear adoption will hit friction fast. So

13:09
Scott, maybe let's touch  a little bit on identity and zero trust. I think that's very critical for things such as wearables.  Um,  and, and we should,  this is no different. Yeah. Good point.  Um, so I think this is the part that every CIO needs to hear. Uh, smart glasses absolutely have to be in your identity fabric. So if you're using today, uh, Okta, Azure AD, MDM, you know, device trust, you know, the whole package. Yeah. And because these devices might

13:38
swap users during shift changes.  You need rapid login that's secure. QR codes, tap to pair, biometrics like voice identity and automatic session expiration are just a few. So these are the things you should consider again, before just passing these out at a company event. Yeah. And for security, you need to put in a kill switch. if a oh pair of glasses goes missing, you should be revoking access instantly.  And then

14:07
You know, there's the data governance. What happens to all that video? Yeah, that's a good point. mean, companies absolutely need to have a policy here. You know, think about, you storing footage for how long? Who can access it? Is it allowed to train models? Is it publicly accessible? Should it be publicly accessible? So these are the things around video, for example, in audio that you should consider. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of things to think about there. And I think most enterprises end up choosing between no storage,

14:36
uh, selective capture or continuous recording. And that choice, uh, then would impact compliance, retention, retention policies, privacy, and then your overall legal exposure.  Uh, and yes,  you must ensure that cloud AI vendors don't train on your video unless  explicitly allowed. that's, that's, that's a very good point. Um, so then if you think about the artificial intelligence decision,

15:06
cloud, private or edge, really need to answer the question at the end of the day, where is this model going to reside? This is a strategic fork in the road. Gen.ai understanding often uses cloud models, but also think about proprietary workflows like identifying specific parts, might use private models, things like that that you start to think about where this will be is something that you need to ask the organization.

15:34
Yeah. And then for some of the very sensitive environments like uh energy defense or healthcare,  they might need an on-prem or  maybe even on-device processing. uh So  I think long-term we're going to see hybrid approaches with a Glasses route requests intelligently. Right. Good point. And I also think there's the networking component. really the silent requirement, the plumbing. ah Yeah. There is a cost companies

16:03
kind of forget about the networking. So smart glasses need stable, low latency connectivity. Warehouses and hospitals often need wifi upgrades to support this. So that's another component to think about again in your organization as you deploy. Yeah. So, you know, walking around a bigger facility, if your access points aren't tuned for seamless handoff or your network becomes overloaded, your augmented reality workflows are just going to fall apart.

16:30
So something to think about there. uh And many companies end up adding new edge compute nodes or quality of service, QoS rules, just for eyewear traffic. Yep. Good point. The other question that you will all probably ask  is build versus buy. So they need to decide within the organization, are you going to build this on your own? Probably not build your own set of glasses, but the infrastructure and the platform to support the technology, or are you going to purchase one?

17:00
Most larger organizations discover that they need kind of a blend of both, maybe a hybrid model, buy platforms for standard workflows, build custom apps to achieve and maintain your competitive edge. Um, could be whether it's pricing or time to market or customer, you know, success. Those are the things that you as an organization have to kind of map out. Yeah. And I think those, uh, there are, there are a lot of  new  solid.

17:28
third party platforms that are popping up. I'm sure there'll be many more. And it's  kind of like the early mobile era all over again. So you have, you know, off the shelf for basics.  And then you might want to customize your model for your own competitive secret sauce to get an advantage. Right. So the bottom line for tech leaders,  smart eyewear is not a gadget. It's a platform. Just remember that. Yeah. Yeah. I think the companies that treat it like a

17:57
first class computing layer with identity, governance, uh AI and workflows are going to be the ones  that are really able to unlock its real value. And that leads into security, privacy, and some of the ethical questions. Yeah, for sure. Smart glasses  really introduce a totally new  privacy paradigm. These devices can record without anyone noticing. That changes social norms.

18:24
And again, it may also bounce up against privacy laws and other things that need to be aware of ah depending upon where these devices are being used. Yeah. So definitely a lot of work to do around the questions that enterprises need to answer.  Who  and what gets recorded? Where does that go?  All party consent laws still apply. GDPR applies. uh Biometric and facial recognition rules apply.

18:49
And the companies are going to have to create opt out zones. So there's definitely some complexity, a lot of work to do. Yeah, that's a point. And there's also the workplace dynamic. If a manager wears smart glasses that analyze worker behavior, that can become  maybe boss wear,  using my air quotes.  And that's where the ethics come in and uh human resources and other things to consider it  as part of all of this.

19:17
Yeah. And then just another way to look at it is  if you don't support smart glasses, you might have uh in a large organization, employees that might have disabilities, and then you might be unintentionally creating some inequity there. So that needs to be considered as well as the technology really proliferates. Yeah, agreed. It's not a matter of good or bad. It's about governance and trust. Yep. Yeah. So think, you know, looking ahead, um

19:46
The hardware, the glasses, they're starting to become lighter. The displays are getting better and better. They're getting brighter. The AI is getting more contextual and glasses will eventually kind of blend our digital and physical lives pretty seamlessly. they're definitely going to become more pervasive. You're going to start to see them everywhere. And for businesses, smart eyewear would become normal the same way laptops did.

20:14
same way mobile did, as you mentioned a little while ago, and the same way AirPods did.  You recall everyone in your organization way back when that were the first adopters of these types of devices, you'll start seeing the next generation of the smart eyewear. Yeah, 100%. It's moving very quickly. And I think we're kind of right at the beginning of another major platform shift. Vision smart eyewear is the really the missing link between AI and the physical world. Yep. ah

20:44
It's one thing to type prompts into a laptop. It's another to have context aware assistance  in the hour, literally seeing what you see to help you navigate. Yeah. Yeah. I think the opportunities are incredible.  uh,  so are the governance questions that go along with it, like we've talked about  and the choices that we make now as leaders, technologists, policy makers are going to start to shape the next decade as a more and more of these.

21:12
multimodal devices are available. Yeah. If your organization is exploring smart eyewear,  or you want to help designing a pilot program, reach out to us. This is an area where thoughtful design, including a network design, like we talked about kind of the plumbing of all the infrastructure ah makes or breaks the experience. Exactly. um Yeah. So I think we'll wrap it up there. ah Thanks for joining the macro AI podcast.  I'm Scott.

21:42
And I'm Gary. Thanks for listening.  And who knows, maybe our next podcast episode will play directly in your glasses. Well, maybe next year. Nice. Thank you.