Asked whether Specs are a utility tool, a gamification play, or a social tool, Spiegel is crystal clear. “They’re a computer,” he says, adding that Snap’s years of investment into AR are justified by the fact the glasses have the potential to redefine personal computing beyond the smartphone. “Our vision is to try to make computing more human, and allow people to be present in the world around them. Ironically, to do that, computing needs to live in the world around us and interact with the world the same way people do.”
But do people — who are finding new value in being offline — want digital tools to overlap with the real world? Spiegel argues that AI-assisted AR represents the next technological paradigm, because it allows people to become more productive via hands-free, heads-up interactions with digital information that they’ve only been able to access via heads-down hardware until now.
A big part of this ambition is facilitated by the second product Snap is launching on Wednesday, Specs Intelligence, a new AI assistant it’s pitching as an “anticipatory AI service” that “builds an understanding of your goals, priorities, relationships, and routines” when plugged into as many data collection touchpoints as possible across your life. Downloadable on iPhone, Mac, and Specs glasses for adults in the US from September 16, users can grant Specs Intelligence permission to access their email, calendar and Notes — not dissimilar from rival Meta’s new Muse AI personal assistant, announced last week.
By combining the AI assistant with camera-enabled smart glasses and earphones, Specs is able to train its model on real-world context — the golden ticket in the race to build “ambient AI”, where AI can continuously understand what a user sees, hears and does, rather than waiting to be prompted. That context could make AI vastly more useful, but it also requires access to far more intimate data about users and the people around them, making privacy a central tension as distrust of AI grows. That tension feels particularly acute this week, after the leaders of Anthropic, OpenAI, Google Deepmind and xAI united in their calls to slow the development of increasingly powerful AI models, warning that safety measures are struggling to keep pace.
Snap is pitching privacy as a differentiator, pointing to on-device processing and safeguards it says prevents its employees from accessing users’ content.
Specs wearers can access apps like the ‘Shop’ app and ‘Translation’ within the dashboard of the in-built display, as well as a general browser.
Photo: Courtesy of Specs.
