The smart glasses market surged in the last year, with Meta dominating

Smart glasses might still feel like a niche category of tech, but they seem to be selling at a much faster clip than they were a year ago. Global AI glasses shipments jumped 263% year over year in the first half of 2026, and the vast majority weren’t AR specs.

Counterpoint Research’s latest Intelligent Eyewear Market Tracker attributes most of that growth to the cheaper, more mature display-less category, which includes products such as the Ray-Ban Meta AI Glasses. Shipments in this segment rose 258% year over year and 22% compared with the second half of 2025.

Meta currently has a vice-like grip on this part of the market, accounting for 94% of display-less AI glasses shipments in H1 2026. Its own volumes rose 260% year over year, helped by new Ray-Ban variants, expansion into more countries, retail promotions, and cheaper Meta-branded glasses.

Glasses with an actual AR display are still a tiny slice of the overall pie, but their shipments are growing even faster than those of their display-less counterparts. Counterpoint says shipments of AR and AI glasses jumped 449% year over year, albeit from a small base. Rokid led this category with a 41% share, just ahead of Meta at 37%, while China accounted for 45% of shipments. Counterpoint attributes China’s early lead partly to its more established component supply chain.

There may be fairly obvious problems awaiting the industry as it grows. Counterpoint flags rising component costs and increasing public concern about cameras and privacy as potential near-term headwinds. The former has been a long-standing issue across most areas of tech, while the latter has been a topical concern as smart glasses have become a little more mainstream. Meta’s recent struggle with the recording indicator on its glasses is just one example, including a loophole that allowed users to cover the LED after recording had already started.

Counterpoint doesn’t expect those issues to derail the broader growth of AI glasses, and it predicts we’ll see more form factors designed to sidestep the camera problem altogether. That includes camera-free AI audio glasses, which may already be on Meta’s radar — A report last week suggests the company is considering a pair built around microphones and AI rather than a camera.