Why AI smart glasses need a privacy-first approach

Technology innovation should always be driven by one core objective – to improve people’s lives. Unleashing human imagination in new and exciting ways, whether that’s solving complex problems or making everyday life easier.We’re at a fascinating moment in time, where smartphones have become the de facto platform, but in terms of innovation they have reached a bit of a plateau. New smartphones have largely incremental hardware updates and optimizations without groundbreaking new features.But then AI came along to shake things up. And that AI, when used well, is making a huge positive impact in people’s lives. AI is best used to complement human abilities – if you look at fields like medical imaging, AI can help to analyze huge data sets and spot patterns for physicians to diagnose fully.Across tech, AI is having a big impact in how we interact with technology. Most notably transforming smartphones and smart devices. And it’s created a new category where you don’t even need to be holding your phone – AI smart glasses.The AI smart glasses category has been growing rapidly, with research by Omdia finding global shipments of AI glasses had reached 8.7 million units in 2025, up 322% year-on-year.It’s interesting to look at the ‘why’. On paper, AI glasses don’t have as much processing power or storage or RAM as a smartphone, so how could they be of use? And it's down to the form factor and AI.Potential for smart glassesThere’s a lot of potential for smart glasses in the B2B sector. Increased productivity, real-time interactivity or enhanced customer experiences, the potential use cases are huge across many verticals.Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed!One example I love is the potential to change how people engage with cultural subject matter. Imagine a pair of AI glasses as an “audio guide 2.0” that would become a deeply personalized guide, interacting with the knowledge base and curation of the venue – whether it’s a museum, art gallery or historical heritage site.Visitors can ask specific questions about certain subject matter and get real-time answers as they explore a museum or gallery, making it much more conversational and interactive. Lightweight in form factor, smart glasses can be worn over long periods of time. And in the future, the same tour could generate layers of explanations tailored to different audiences (children, amateurs, experts), without imposing the same experience on everyone. We’re already seeing these concepts being explored by cultural institutions.This form factor can also blend seamlessly into everyday life, and make tasks easier. How many times have you been somewhere like a concert and witnessed a sea of smartphone screens? The same with navigating around a city. People experiencing life through their device. AI glasses are changing that, allowing you to be more present in the moment without having to live and capture memories through a phone screen.I actually found myself running late and lost in Rotterdam train station recently. I speak three languages fluently, but if you’ve been to the Netherlands you know it’s hard to guess at some of the words. Safe to say, it was getting stressful. I was wearing AI glasses, and asked it to translate the signs around me – I was on my way quickly.But with every emerging technology comes new challenges and societal considerations. And there’s a responsibility on manufacturers and innovators to find ways to realize this vision responsibly. For AI smart glasses, there's one crucial piece of the puzzle that will shape their true impact - and that's privacy.Creating a privacy-first architecture One element is data privacy. We’re in an era where people’s personal information has been largely commoditized. Where AI smart glasses are concerned, we’re seeing a huge amount of contention about how personal data is gathered by some manufacturers and used to train AI models.For me, it’s very simple. Our company DNA has always been that privacy should be treated as a core principle, not an afterthought.But what does privacy-by-design actually look like in practice?Control of data should ultimately remain with the user. And that’s why it’s crucial to have data stored locally on smart glasses by default – and only transferred off the device when initiated by the user.And you can safeguard local data even further with military-grade encryption – something that is particularly important for many organizations and will be required when handling internal and customer data. This means that even if someone else tries to take the AI glasses and pair them to another phone, the previous data cannot be accessed.These concerns over data should also extend to how we interact with LLMs. As AI tools become embedded into our daily lives, the more requests we send to LLMs, the easier it is for them to build a profile of you. And it’s the same for AI smart glasses.With a privacy-first architecture, third party AI requests are de-identified, so that LLMs cannot build an accurate profile. Policies where user data is not used to train any LLMs should be standard.There’s also the matter of protecting the privacy of people around you when wearing smart glasses. It’s crucial to have visual indicators, like an LED indicator that lights up during photo or video capture to signal photography or video is being recorded at that moment.It's obviously not good enough that on some AI glasses, it’s possible to obscure the LED and effectively hide it from view. Any AI glasses worth their salt should use a multi-sensor approach so that photos and video recording should automatically disable if the LED is obstructed or when the glasses are removed.We collectively have this incredible opportunity - a new technology which combines the versatility of AI with wearables. But AI smart glasses will only be a huge benefit to us all, if privacy is handled correctly.We've featured the best VR headsets.This article was produced as part of TechRadar Pro Perspectives, our channel to feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today.The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/pro/perspectives-how-to-submit