Qualcomm has enabled what certainly one of its executives mentioned was a wierd and “most interesting conversations– and it was with a pair of generative AI-powered smart glasses.”
In a chat at Augmented World Expo, Ziad Asghar, senior vp of XR & spatial computing at Qualcomm, mentioned that the chat wasn’t only a easy demo. It was a glimpse into how we’re turning AI glasses, which have lengthy been thought of an adjunct, right into a standalone, complete succesful system.
The corporate additionally unveiled its Snapdragon AR1+ Gen 1 processor, which is 26% smaller than the earlier generations, to energy the demo.
“On Tuesday, as I stood on stage at AWE USA, the world’s largest XR conference, I chatted with an AI assistant through a pair of RayNeo X3 Pro smart glasses powered by Snapdragon technology, – with AI inferencing done on the glasses without relying on the cloud or an internet connection,” mentioned Ziad Asghar, senior vp of XR & spatial computing at Qualcomm, in an announcement.
Qualocomm has launched numerous XR glasses prior to now 12 months.
He mentioned the premise is easy: AI glasses are set to function independently without having to be paired with a smartphone or the cloud.
“In the near future, I will be able to leave my phone in my pocket or in the car and just wear my smart glasses during a supermarket run, as I showed off during my AWE demo,” Asghar mentioned. “While on stage, I was at the ‘supermarket’ and asked my glasses for help with fettuccine alfredo I needed to make for my daughter’s birthday party.”
In response, the AI assistant, operating Llama 1B, a small language mannequin (SLM), understood the particular request and offered him with the data he wanted by audio and textual content displayed within the lens of his glasses.
This demonstration was a world’s first: an Autoregressive Generative AI mannequin operating utterly on a pair of sensible glasses. No cellphone. No cloud. Simply the processor powering the glasses themselves. And this business milestone was pulled off in entrance of a dwell viewers, he mentioned.
Topping this off was the announcement of our Snapdragon AR1+ Gen 1 processor, which is 26% smaller than the earlier generations and brings enhanced picture high quality, dimension, energy enchancment and the power to run SLMs. All 4 of those traits are important for compact sensible glasses.
Collectively, they open the door to a revolution in AI sensible glasses, with thinner, lighter and extra various glass designs paired with sufficient energy to run AI assistants proper on the system.
So, whereas the demo was only one instance of what you are able to do with utterly on-device AI on sensible glasses, the advantages that stem from the work happening at Qualcomm, are long-lasting and large.
Broaden and evolve
Qualcomm’s announcments.
There isn’t one path that XR headsets and sensible glasses will take, particularly since we additionally provide combined actuality processors akin to Snapdragon XR2 and Snapdragon XR2+ that even have important inferencing functionality on the system.
Asghar mentioned he anticipates a number of totally different kind components, from standalone glasses highly effective sufficient to run AI fashions themselves, to extra light-weight frames linked to telephones or close by small computing “pucks” that may hyperlink something from a automotive to a pill. What Qualcomm is doing with the portfolio is preparing for the long run.
Whether or not it’s cloud computing, on-device, or a hybrid path that includes each, the increase in on-device AI capabilities will provide a seamless and ultra-low latency consumer expertise that’s additionally security-focused. That might be important as AI-powered sensible glasses discover their manner into sectors with mission-critical wants and customers demand extra personalization, extra privateness options, and an end-to-end agentic expertise.
“We’ve already seen significant momentum in the XR industry over the last year. In December, we collaborated with Google and Samsung to launch Android XR, an operating system designed with AI at the core of the XR experience,” he mentioned.
This comes because the business continues to develop, with Meta’s Ray-Ban Glasses, in addition to extra bold {hardware} akin to Meta Orion, which it payments as the corporate’s first true augmented actuality glasses with their very own digital overlay.
As well as, Asghar mentioned we’ve seen glasses from Rokid, RayNeo, XREAL and extra. In March, BleeqUp launched a pair of AI-powered sports activities glasses.
Think about what these corporations will have the ability to accomplish with smaller, extra highly effective platforms like Snapdragon AR1+ Gen 1, enabling sleeker kind components that don’t compromise on the power to run AI fashions, Asghar mentioned.
Smarter, extra conscious
Qualcomm is mixing XR and AI.
Whereas getting sensible glasses right down to an inexpensive dimension and match is important, one other advance that Snapdragon AR1+ Gen 1 brings is digital camera capabilities sometimes present in premium smartphones, which is equally necessary to the place they’re evolving.
That capability to see the world that you just see – with each minute element – will open new avenues of multimodal inputs. That functionality is important for AI to not solely higher perceive what you see, but additionally join the dots in a manner that lets it proactively provide strategies or further context on an object or location.
And whereas sensible glasses will have the ability to run SLMs on their very own, that doesn’t imply they received’t work in tandem with a constellation of units round you, whether or not it’s your smartphone or PC. In actual fact, I see sensible watches and new units akin to sensible rings or different wearable sensors that can allow new modalities of enter as they work in live performance together with your glasses.
At Qualcomm Applied sciences, we’re making ready for a multifaceted future with a variety of system mixtures by making a modular structure that permits our companions to faucet into the spatial computing business to ship a superior expertise to shoppers.
That’s why I do know this dialog with my sensible glasses’ AI assistant is such a pivotal second – it actually marked the start of one thing big. The work we’re doing is simply beginning to unlock the game-changing potential of a deeper and extra personalised agentic expertise.
“A world’s first on-glass Gen AI demonstration: Qualcomm’s vision for the future of smart glasses,” mentioned Qualcomm. “Our live demonstration of a generative AI assistant running completely on smart glasses – without the aid of a phone or the cloud — and the reveal of the new Snapdragon AR1+ platform spark new possibilities for augmented reality.”
