According to the Financial Times, the creation of a new consumer device that can replace the smartphone is ongoing in Silicon Valley. Developers hope a new wave of smart glasses with artificial intelligence and ChatGPT-style assistants can engage consumers in a way that Google Glass hasn’t been able to.

“We see incredible potential in smart glasses, especially if you use voice and broad language models as interfaces,” said Cristiano Amon, CEO of mobile chipmaker Qualcomm.

In 2012, Google introduced Glass, futuristic smart glasses with a camera that can be controlled with voice commands. The company shelved this product in early 2015. This didn’t stop companies like Magic Leap, Amazon, and Snap from launching smart glasses in the following years, but none of them were successful in the mass market.

The first version of Ray-Ban glasses from Meta, in which cameras and tiny speakers are placed in the frames, was released in 2021. According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, only 300,000 units were sold this summer, indicating that they remain a niche product.

OpenAI chief Sam Altman discussed creating a wearable AI device with former Apple designer Sir Jony Ive and SoftBank chief Masaeshi Son, people familiar with the matter told the Financial Times.

Meanwhile, Samsung has applied for the Samsung Glasses and Galaxy Glasses trademarks in the US and UK, sparking rumors that the company is working on a product to rival the Meta smart glasses.

“We’re really on the cusp of something new,” said Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Creative Strategies. “It’s very different from Google Glass.”