Over the past year, Big Tech has steadily moved into fashion, and Vogue Business has been tracking every step. So it was no surprise when Meta recently launched a campaign featuring Kylie Jenner for its latest AI smart glasses. The new lineup includes 26 styles and a pair co-designed with Jenner herself. Like the existing Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley smart glasses, these new designs were developed with EssilorLuxottica — the company that also owns Prada eyewear, which is rumored to be Meta’s next partner.
Snap released its second attempt at smart glasses just a week earlier: the new $2,195 Specs, powered by AI and AR. And two weeks before that, Google unveiled the first designs for its upcoming Intelligent Eyewear AI smart glasses. So it was about time the spotlight returned to Meta, the smart glasses leader that first launched its version back in 2021.
Big Tech has been borrowing from fashion’s playbook to improve its image, and the new Kylie partnership and glasses launch is its biggest move yet into fashion and culture. But beneath the question of whether Jenner can finally make Meta’s smart glasses cool, there’s a tougher question for Meta and its rivals: Is recruiting fashion’s most influential trendsetters enough to make a product feel normal when it fundamentally makes consumers uneasy?
Not so fast. Early reactions to the Jenner launch focused on one specific feature of the glasses: the built-in camera. “Just another way for Meta to spy on you by seeing what you see every day,” one Instagram user said. “The people don’t want this.” “These should be illegal,” said others. “No surveillance state,” another added. Similar comments flooded in response to Snap’s Specs and Google’s collaboration with Gentle Monster. “Booooo we hate surveillance technology disguised as fashion,” one user summed up.
Experts say consumers are much more aware of the dangers of AI smart glasses than the tech companies making them might think — and fashion brands looking to partner on collaborative designs should keep this in mind.
“This is bigger than privacy awareness,” says Dr. Sarah Saska, a sociotechnologist who studies tech’s relationship with culture and power. Saska points to three factors driving the unease: a crisis of trust, where faith in Big Tech, AI, and institutions is low; growing tech literacy, where five years ago people accepted “AI-powered” at face value but now ask what data is collected, who owns it, where it goes, who trains these systems, and who profits; and a shift in how people view celebrity and influencer culture — especially the Kardashians.
“The campaign landed at the exact moment people were ready to question its motives — fashion and celebrity actually increased the scrutiny instead of softening it,” Saska says. “People, especially women, saw it for what it was: an attempt to reshape the product’s cultural meaning.”
Surveillance isn’t sexy
Yes, we already live in a world where smartphones are constantly recording. But what smart glasses remove is the social cue of lifting a phone — a small gesture that tells everyone else they’re on camera.
Both Meta and Snap’s glasses have a small LED light that flashes white when the wearer takes a photo and stays lit when recording a video. But users have found ways to bypass this on Meta’s glasses — from timing finger-covering tricks during startup, shared on Reddit forums, to third-party camera covers and tinting stickers available on Amazon and eBay.
When asked how Meta is handling these privacy concerns, a company spokesperson told Vogue Business: “We have teams dedicated to limiting and combating misuse, but as with any technology, the ultimate responsibility lies with the user.”The responsibility falls on the individual not to actively misuse it.” They added that Meta’s dedicated privacy teams are working to prevent users from capturing content when they try to cover or damage the LED light, and that Meta is “constantly improving the tamper detection technology.” A Snap spokesperson responded to questions about the Snap glasses’ built-in privacy protections by also pointing to the LED light, which stays on continuously during audio and video recording and flashes when taking a photo. “Users must explicitly approve access to sensitive sensors like the camera and microphone, and Specs use clear visual indicators whenever media is being captured or shared,” they added. Google did not respond to requests for comment on the privacy features of its smart glasses, which will be released in the fall.
“The ‘creep’ framing is provocative and points to something real. But I worry it reduces the problem to one creep on a train taking a picture, when the real danger is always-on cameras becoming normal.” — Dr. Sarah Saska, sociotechnologist.
But privacy experts say this approach puts the burden on citizens to watch for a light. Meanwhile, there have been several reports of people—mostly women—who say they were filmed without their consent by AI glasses wearers.
“The immediate risks are covert and sexualized recording, filming people in vulnerable moments, capturing children, harassment, stalking, and footage that can fuel extortion or deepfakes. The ‘creep’ framing is provocative and points to something real,” says Saska. “But I worry it shrinks the problem to one creep on a train taking a picture, when the structural danger is always-on cameras becoming ordinary, human workers reviewing footage, and data pooling in an ecosystem owned by one company. Once that hardware is on millions of faces, it becomes infrastructure that police, immigration agencies, employers, and the company itself can use. The creep is just one part of a much larger system.”
Fashion commentators have pointed out that Meta’s choice of Jenner is an effective way to gain legitimacy and reach young women and fashion and beauty consumers. While early adopters of AI wearables—from Oura rings to Meta’s smart glasses—were mostly Silicon Valley tech bros, tech companies have had to change their approach to reach female consumers and move away from a purely male-focused image. This is a trend throughout consumer tech history: devices rarely become mainstream until women adopt them, from Facebook’s shift from a college side project to social infrastructure, to fitness trackers that started as nerdy gadgets but rebranded as wellness tools with women’s health features.
But sociologists like Saska say the strategy goes deeper and is a clear example of the feminization of AI: using women, femininity, and beauty culture to make a controversial technology feel safe, intimate, and desirable. Saska says her research found that the more politically controversial AI becomes, the more aggressively it is feminized.
“As tech faces backlash over surveillance, job loss, environmental costs, and military use, companies reframe it through beauty, motherhood, wellness, and lifestyle,” she says, pointing to another layer—the fact that Jenner’s voice is integrated into the new glasses as the voice for Meta’s AI assistant, which makes the device feel more human through a camera that greets you in a familiar feminine voice.
Kaia Gerber is one of Snap’s chosen “creative visionaries” for the launch of its Specs AR glasses, which were released a week before Meta’s new line of AI smart glasses. Photo: Steven Meisel, courtesy of Snap.
This framing doesn’t address concerns about consent. “Does a small light on the glasses count as asking for consent? I don’t think so, which arguably means they violate the GDPR,” says Carissa Véliz, associate professor of philosophy at Oxford University’s Institute forEthics. This has major implications for fashion brands considering partnerships involving AI-powered eyewear. Like with most AI applications, the law hasn’t caught up with the technology yet — there are almost no laws written specifically for AI smart glasses. Instead, they’re governed by a mix of existing laws on photography, audio recording, privacy, data protection, and biometrics. And those laws were mostly designed for smartphones and CCTV, not for always-on AI wearables. In the EU, it’s not illegal to own or wear camera-equipped smart glasses, but as Véliz points out, legal issues arise when they collect and process personal data. Under GDPR, if identifiable people are recorded and that footage is processed, stored, or used to train AI, the controller must have a lawful basis, be transparent, and follow data protection rules.
“As tech faces backlash over surveillance, job loss, environmental harm, and military use, companies reframe it through beauty, motherhood, wellness, and lifestyle.” — Dr. Sarah Saska, sociotechnologist.
Smart glasses are treated much like any other camera, but AI complicates things because footage may be uploaded, analyzed, transcribed, or used to improve models. That’s why Meta’s AI glasses have drawn scrutiny from European regulators, following reports about human review of footage. When asked if these reports are accurate, a Meta spokesperson said: “When people share content with Meta AI, we sometimes use contractors to review this data to improve people’s experience, as many other companies do. We take steps to filter this data to protect privacy and help prevent identifying information from being reviewed.”
In response to questions about whether Meta is developing facial recognition technology for its smart glasses, the spokesperson added: “We’ve been transparent that we’re exploring these types of features,” and that if the company does roll out facial recognition to customers, it will “take a thoughtful approach and do so with full transparency.” A Snap spokesperson said its upcoming Specs release won’t use facial recognition, and that the company “prioritizes on-device processing wherever possible” by requiring explicit permission to access the built-in camera and microphone, running Snap Lenses apps in “isolated environments with limited permissions,” and giving users “controls over what information is stored, shared, and deleted.” Google did not respond to requests for comment.
Peggy Gou, who DJ’d at the NYC launch party for Meta’s new smart glasses, pictured with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg (top). The launch party also featured an installation by Crosby Studio’s founder Harry Nuriev (bottom). Photos: Hunter Abrams (top), Andrew Boyle (bottom), Courtesy of Meta.
Meanwhile, in the US, there are no federal laws specifically regulating smart glasses, but they also fall under existing laws on video recording, audio recording (under wiretapping and eavesdropping laws), biometric privacy laws, and state privacy statutes. For example, whether recording audio on the glasses requires one-party or all-party consent varies from state to state. So the biggest legal questions mostly don’t focus on the glasses themselves, but on what happens to the data they capture.
“The glasses put the burden on citizens to be on the lookout and run outside the camera’s view or cover their faces,” says Véliz, who highlights citizens’ rights in this situation. “But it’s not always possible to protect yourself. It makes surveillance the default and puts the responsibility on non-wearers of glasses to protect themselves.”
“The glasses put the burden on citizens to be on the lookout and run outside the camera’s view or cover their faces. But it’s not always possible to protect yourself. It makes surveillance the default and puts the responsibility on non-wearers of glasses to protect themselves.” — Carissa Véliz, associate professor of philosophy.At Oxford University’s Institute for Ethics, the discussion around smart glasses highlights a key tension. While they are generally legal under the same rules as smartphones, they exist in a gray area between what the law allows and what society finds acceptable. Current recording laws assume that recording is visible, but smart glasses remove many of those social cues, making consent and awareness much harder in practice.
For fashion brands that work with tech companies on AI hardware design and branding, this creates two types of risk: growing regulatory scrutiny around the world, alongside increasing consumer scrutiny. Experts warn that these brands may soon have to navigate a fast-changing web of GDPR rules, state recording laws, and biometric privacy regulations, as well as the reputational risks of using recording devices that are not yet fully regulated.
Is the solution to remove the camera?
While most consumer backlash against smart glasses focuses on their built-in cameras, challenger brand Even Realities is taking a different approach. Its AI glasses do not include a camera at all, aiming to prioritize privacy. Instead, they use a transparent heads-up display to offer other features found in Meta and Snap’s glasses, such as AI-powered translation, navigation, notifications, and note-taking. The company also sells a wearable health tracker ring that pairs with the glasses, so users can view their health data on the in-lens display.
This alternative approach has attracted major investor support. Even Realities just closed a $150 million pre-Series B funding round, led by Chinese megafunds Meituan and Tencent, at a $1 billion valuation. When Vogue Business spoke to Even Realities CEO Will Wang, he was on a fundraising roadshow meeting North American and European investors ahead of the company’s Series B round. He says that round will close by the end of 2026, at three times the valuation of the latest round.
“A camera for us is a no-go, until laws exist where we feel like the world has found a way to coexist with cameras on faces, which we very much don’t have now.” — Will Wang, CEO of Even Realities.
Unlike rivals Meta, Google, and Snap, which focus on collecting ambient data through built-in cameras, Wang believes the key to mass adoption of AI smart glasses is a useful software interface that consumers can access through an optical display. For now, he is focused on building productivity features through an app network for the glasses, rather than a camera that can link the glasses to the physical world. The glasses do have a microphone so users can activate Even Realities’ AI assistant, but wearers cannot take calls with the glasses, and Wang says there is no way to record people’s voices and save them off the device.
“A camera for us is a no-go, until laws exist where we feel like the world has found a way to coexist with cameras on faces, which we very much don’t have now,” Wang says. “And yes, there’s a microphone on the glasses, but there’s a microphone everywhere now. You can record someone easily on your phone with a microphone, but we still feel like we don’t want to enable any way of recording people’s voices — that would be giving people a reason to feel uncomfortable about our glasses, which is exactly what we don’t want.”
These privacy-first features mean that a large portion of Even Realities’ customers, whose glasses start at $599, are high-net-worth individuals and people in politics or public life. Wang expects 2026 revenues to be “in the hundreds of millions of dollars.” Now, the Chinese company hopes to grow further in Europe and North America by capitalizing on its privacy-first unique selling point. Instead of partnering with fashion-adjacent celebrities, Wang says Even Realities has worked with influential figures who are well known in their specific fields — from the USA’s deaf swimming team, who he says use the glasses to aid communication, to leadership thinker and CEO David Fiorucci.Aralow is one of Snap’s chosen “creative visionaries” for the launch of its Specs AR glasses, shown here at the Specs launch party in Paris.
Photo: Saskia Lawaks, courtesy of Snap.
While Wang says Even Realities has kept a relatively low profile since its founding in 2023, its new funding and push to attract customers could be well-timed, as more consumers are turning against camera-powered rivals. That’s no small achievement — the big tech companies it’s competing with have a huge advantage in brand recognition.
But Even Realities still relies on cloud processing for some advanced AI features, which means voice queries and related data may be sent to external AI services like ChatGPT and Gemini.
“This isn’t just a hardware competition anymore; it’s a cultural one, and fashion can’t fix a legitimacy problem.”
— Dr. Sarah Saska, sociotechnologist.
Privacy experts warn that being camera-free doesn’t automatically mean being surveillance-free. “Safety depends on the whole system, including updates that can change what a device does overnight. Something that seems private today can stop being private after a single update,” says Saska. She argues that the focus should shift from privacy-first hardware to privacy-first governance, which ensures that AI products continue to respect people’s rights as technology, software, and business models evolve.
For that to happen, as Véliz argues, culture plays a crucial role. For now, the backlash against the latest AI smart glasses highlights a stubborn problem with consumer perception: fashion might make products more desirable, but it can’t overcome distrust on its own.
“The line I’d draw is between acceptable and safe. Making something feel normal doesn’t remove the harm; it just silences the questions we should be asking,” says Saska. “This isn’t just a hardware competition anymore; it’s a cultural one, and fashion can’t solve a legitimacy problem.”
Frequently Asked Questions
Here is a list of FAQs about whether smart glasses have a surveillance problem written in a natural tone with clear answers
BeginnerLevel Questions
1 What exactly are smart glasses
Smart glasses are wearable devices that look like regular glasses but have a builtin computer They can take photos record video display information in your field of view and connect to the internet
2 Why do people say smart glasses are a surveillance problem
The main concern is that they make it very easy to secretly record people Unlike holding up a phone a tiny camera in glasses can capture video or photos without anyone knowing they are being filmed
3 Can someone really record me without my permission using smart glasses
Yes many models have small discreet cameras If the person wearing them is recording you might not see them holding a device or pressing a button making it hard to know youre being recorded
4 Are smart glasses always recording
No Most require you to press a button tap the frame or use a voice command to start recording However the problem is that these actions can be very subtle and easily hidden
5 Is it illegal to record someone with smart glasses
It depends on where you live Laws about recording people without consent vary by country and state Generally recording in public is often legal but recording in private places without consent is usually illegal
IntermediateLevel Questions
6 How are smart glasses different from a phone or a body camera for surveillance
The key difference is stealth A phone is obvious when pointed at you A body camera is usually visible on a uniform Smart glasses look like normal eyewear making covert recording much easier and more socially dangerous
7 What specific features make smart glasses a privacy risk
Hidden cameras They can be built into the bridge or frame
Long battery life Some can record for hours
Live streaming Some glasses can stream video directly to the internet or a private server
Facial recognition A few models can identify people and display information about them
8 Do all smart glasses have cameras
No Some models are designed for audio only or for displaying information The privacy risk is mainly with models that have a