Alibaba will release its first self-developed AI glasses this week, joining the "Battle of a Hundred Glasses" | Exclusive from Intelligent Emergence

Text | Deng Yongyi

Editor | Su Jianxun

According to exclusive information obtained by "Intelligent Emergence", Alibaba will release its first self-developed AI glasses this week, joining the "Battle of a Hundred Glasses".

A person familiar with the matter revealed to "Intelligent Emergence" that the AI glasses Alibaba is about to release will have the basic functions that most products on the market have, such as voice assistant, music playback, phone calls, real-time translation, meeting minutes and other functions.

This product will also achieve integration within the Alibaba ecosystem, including functions related to maps, payments, and shopping. "The technical teams of Amap, Alipay, Taobao, etc. are all involved." The above-mentioned person said.

In terms of the product's AI capabilities, the basic model will call Tongyi Qianwen, while Quark will train and develop vertical models in areas such as learning and health.

As we understand, in terms of hardware specifications, this AI glasses will surpass the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses and will be available in two versions - AI smart glasses without a display, and AI + AR smart glasses with a display, with the latter having a higher priority. At the hardware level, this pair of glasses will adopt a dual-chip architecture, using Qualcomm Snapdragon AR1 + BES2800 from BES.

This is also the first AI product launched by Alibaba since it integrated its AI To C business at the end of last year. "It is an extension of Alibaba's AI to C strategy." An insider told us.

We have systematically reported on the evolution of this strategy. Since the end of 2024, Alibaba has carried out a series of business integrations - first, the Tongyi application team was adjusted to the Alibaba Smart Information Business Group; then, the Smart Internet of Things Business Group, which owns the To C hardware brand "Tmall Genie", merged with the Quark team. All the above teams are under the management of Wu Jia, the vice president of Alibaba Group.

After the team integration, Alibaba's first self-developed AI glasses are being jointly developed by the Tmall Genie hardware team and the Quark AI R & D team. The main person in charge is Song Gang, the person in charge of the intelligent terminal business of Alibaba's Smart Information Business Group. He was once the chief architect of several Huawei flagship mobile phones and led the R & D of a full range of intelligent hardware products such as smartphones, gaming devices, robots, XR devices, and home mobile terminals.

Previously, most AI glasses on the market had very limited application scenarios. On the one hand, because the technology is still in its early stage, problems such as short battery life, uncomfortable wearing, and eyewear fitting have caused many AI glasses products to remain within the enthusiast group, and some manufacturers' AI glasses have also encountered difficulties in production.

On the other hand, at the software level, the common AI glasses on the market have functions such as photo recognition, translation, guiding, and meeting recording, but these functions are still in a relatively rough stage. For example, the resolution of photos and videos taken is still not satisfactory.

Sales figures also confirm this. Currently, in the global AI glasses market, except for Meta's Ray-Ban, which has sold over one million units in three quarters, other brands are still in the early stage of development. According to the online monitoring data of RUNTO, in the first quarter, the sales volume of domestic smart glasses (including AR glasses) was about 116,000 units, among which only 16,000 units were AI shooting glasses.

The entry of Internet giants with more diversified business scenarios will help change this situation.

The above-mentioned source told "Intelligent Emergence" that if Alibaba can, on the premise of meeting aesthetic requirements, combine Quark's advantages in AI, learning, storage, etc., and reach more high-frequency daily life scenarios such as map navigation, QR code payment, Taobao price comparison, and Fliggy travel reminders in its business ecosystem, it may break through the current development bottlenecks of fragmented AI glasses ecosystem and single application scenarios, and bring AI glasses into the view of more mass consumers.

At the software level, this pair of glasses will also incorporate many capabilities of the Quark AI assistant. In the past six months, Alibaba has made multiple progresses in the application of large models. Quark has been upgraded from a browser and search tool to a "super box" and is now an intelligent assistant with Agent capabilities. At a more fundamental model level, the inference speed has increased and the cost has further decreased, making the development on the edge side possible.

Only by loading these capabilities onto the glasses can AI glasses become a real "portable assistant". Although the AI glasses industry has not reached its explosive period, consumer electronics giants, Internet companies, and startups flocking to the track are all trying to enter the mass consumer market.

Xiaomi's AI glasses are the most attention - grabbing industry event recently. On the evening of June 26th, Xiaomi released its first AI glasses, with a total of 3 versions starting at 1,999 yuan. In terms of product form, it basically benchmarks against Ray - Ban Meta, which is also an attempt to reach more ordinary consumers to a certain extent.

Looking at other players, whether it is giants like Meta or star startups like Rokid, they have all been vying to launch new products recently, covering more daily life scenarios such as daily payments and sports.

In addition to Alibaba, other large companies including Baidu and ByteDance are also entering the market. They all have advantages in technology, capital, and ecosystem. Among them, Baidu's AI glasses have been released but not officially launched for sale, and ByteDance's AI glasses have been in planning for a long time. With the shipment and official launch of many new AI glasses in the second half of 2025, this will become an important milestone in the AI glasses industry.

Cover source | Visual China

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This article is from the WeChat official account "Intelligent Emergence", author: Deng Yongyi. It is published by 36Kr with authorization.