From physical sensations to temperature: AI/AR is accelerating its expansion beyond the boundaries of traditional applications.
If we look back over the past few years, the AR market undoubtedly seemed rather lackluster. Especially when compared with consumer electronics such as mobile phones and PCs, its technological breakthroughs were relatively slow, there were few market hits, the product functions failed to appeal to a wide range of consumers, and related news was rarely reported in the media. The past setbacks might be the reason why Luo Yonghao expressed his frustration over the difficulties in promoting the AR business.
However, since the beginning of this spring, I have been able to clearly sense that the market is accelerating its growth. There have been numerous breaking news stories, and their dissemination scope is much wider than before. Here are a few examples:
During this year's Boao Forum for Asia, CCTV reporters successfully completed their international reporting tasks using the INMO GO2 AI translation glasses from VisionTech. This event was featured on CCTV's "News Broadcast" and sparked widespread discussion.
In March, the overseas celebrity influencer "Hyperthyroid Brother" visited China. During his visit, he also tried the real-time translation function of INMO GO2 and gave a high evaluation. Subsequently, the product was further widely shared on social platforms.
In June this year, the mayor of Chengdu, Wang Fengchao, conducted a visit to Chenghua District and Chengdu High-tech Zone to investigate the development of science and technology enterprises. During this trip, he paid particular attention to the AR company, Yingmu Technology, and it attracted widespread attention.
If we combine some additional data information, we can clearly see that AR glasses have started to gain popularity in the consumer market: The report titled "IDC Quarterly Augmented and Virtual Reality Headset Tracker, 2025Q1" released by the data agency IDC shows that the global market size of AR and ER smart glasses reached 290 million US dollars in 2024, with a year-on-year growth of 24.1%; among which, the consumption and shipment of AR glasses increased by 36% year-on-year. In this case, Yiming Technology won the double championship in the Chinese AR glasses market in 2024, with a 47.6% share of shipment volume and a 39.7% share of sales volume.
After the 618 shopping festival, JD.com released the consumption report for the XR and smart glasses categories. It also mentioned that the number of clubmaster sunglasses users had increased by as much as 70% year-on-year.
Apart from industry-level big data, from the developments of various domestic AR enterprises, it is also not difficult to observe that the market is accelerating its pace.
Take Yingmo Technology as an example. In July last year, the company received a nearly 100 million yuan B-round financing. Just one year later, recently the company completed another B2-round financing of over 150 million yuan, jointly invested by Puhua Capital, Liangxi Industrial Development Group, and Shenqi Capital. This round of funds will be used for the development of the next-generation products, the construction of AI core capabilities, the deepening of the supply chain, and the expansion of offline scenarios.
Furthermore, Yingmo Technology has also achieved remarkable results in terms of product sales: In the first quarter of this year, the total orders for its entire series exceeded 100,000, and it is expected that the total sales for the entire series will exceed 200 million yuan this year. What's more, during the 618 promotion period this year, Yingmo Technology also achieved the top position in both the brand ranking and the single-item ranking in the XR & AI glasses racing competition.
From the user perspective, most AR enterprises have generally reported that the user activity of their products is gradually increasing, and users' awareness and acceptance of rimless sunglasses have reached a new level. As shown in the following figure, they clearly know which needs these products can meet. That is to say, the market education has also entered a virtuous and positive cycle.
From a practical perspective, although running sunglasses cannot yet serve as a universal tool like a Swiss Army knife, they have already been able to fulfill the role of a screwdriver, providing users with an excellent experience in a specific niche scenario. This has enabled them to effectively reach consumers and get them to pay for it.
A typical example here is products like Ray-Ban Meta and INMO GO2, which maintain the excellent wearable features of glasses while adding simple functions such as taking photos, listening to music, and translation. Compared with "heavyweight" products like HoloLens 2 and Vision Pro, they are so simple that they seem like small toys, but this does not prevent users from loving them.
Earlier, Yang Longsheng, the CEO of Yingmo Technology, also mentioned in an interview that the development of AI/AR glasses will go through three stages: AI + tools, AI + life services, and AI + social interaction. Among them, AI + tools will become a feasible scenario at present, and it can achieve functions such as meeting minutes and translation.
Secondly, thanks to the advancements in AR in areas such as chips, optical waveguides, and micro displays, consumer products have reached a critical point in terms of overall completion.
In the past, integrated AR glasses were relatively bulky in appearance, and their display quality, battery life, and application ecosystem were relatively average. However, with the release of INMO AIR3 last year, it set a new standard for the market: a 1080P full-color screen was embedded in a compact body, and it was equipped with its own self-developed IMOS 3.0 operating system, allowing the installation of Android applications, and the movie-watching battery life was around two hours.
From this perspective, AR glasses seem to have their own "Moore's Law": as weight continues to be optimized, the overall experience keeps improving, and currently, we are at a turning point from novelty exploration to stable usage.
Finally, the breakthrough of AI large models is also a significant variable in the AR market.
Previously, during an interview, Zuckerberg had mentioned his misjudgment of the market: "If you had asked me five years ago, I thought we would achieve holographic AR before AI... But later, with the breakthrough of LLM, we now have very high-quality AI, and we have become much better at a very fast pace before holographic AR."
AI was realized before AR, which is like a kind of "massive traffic flow" for the market. Firstly, its emergence has added a killer application to AR glasses. Secondly, since the glasses and AI are naturally compatible: the ideal form of AI hardware needs to be rooted in users' lives, capture the auditory and visual contents that users are concerned about, and provide real-time feedback. Therefore, it must be a certain type of portable device. Moreover, it should also have good audio reception and viewing angles, so many people consider this form of glasses as one of the ideal AI hardware.
With the success of Ray-Ban Meta in recent years and the proliferation of new men’s running sunglasses products, this has inadvertently left a "stereotypical" impression on ordinary users. Whenever we mention AI hardware, we subconsciously think of the eyewear category. With the further development and iteration of AI technology, it is easy to predict that the AR industry will continue to grow.
The current sales volume of the AR glasses industry can prove that the market is accelerating its growth; the stabilization of product forms can prove that the market has passed through a wild exploration period; the steady progress in ecosystem construction can be regarded as the market beginning to move in the right direction. All the signals revealed in the market are optimistic.
Indeed, the development of this industry requires long-term planning and cultivation. However, given the outstanding performance of AR companies like ImagiTech, it seems that the market will bear fruit in just a few years rather than over the next decade!
