# AI glasses need a universal assistant to become useful

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/ai-glasses-need-a-universal-assistant-to-become-useful/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Demis Hassabis](https://realalpha.app/builders/demis-hassabis/) · Demis Hassabis is CEO of Google DeepMind.
- Host: [Alex Kantrowitz](https://realalpha.app/people/alex-kantrowitz/) · Founder, Big Technology · Former BuzzFeed News senior tech reporter and author of Always Day One.
- Show: Big Technology Podcast
- Episode: [Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis: AI's Next Breakthroughs, AGI Timeline, Google's AI Glasses Bet](https://realalpha.app/v/bgBfobN2A7A/), Jan 23, 2026
- Moment: 12:03 to 15:42 of the episode (4 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/ai-glasses-need-a-universal-assistant-to-become-useful/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/bgBfobN2A7A/?t=723

## Quote

> “i think the killer app is **universal digital assistant** that's with you helping you in your everyday life”
> — [Demis Hassabis](https://realalpha.app/builders/demis-hassabis/) at [13:44](https://realalpha.app/v/bgBfobN2A7A/?t=824) · Big Technology Podcast

## Takeaways

1. Hands-free use suits navigation, cooking and support for partially sighted people.
2. He says earlier glasses were too bulky and lacked a killer app.
3. Google is working with Warby Parker, Gentle Monster and Samsung.

## About this segment

Demis Hassabis says phones are the wrong form factor for using AI while moving through the world, and sees a hands-free assistant as the glasses’ key app. Google’s partnerships could bring the devices as soon as this summer.

From “Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis: AI's Next Breakthroughs, AGI Timeline, Google's AI Glasses Bet”, Jan 23, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/bgBfobN2A7A/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[12:08](https://realalpha.app/v/bgBfobN2A7A/?t=728) There was something kind of interesting that happened there. Throughout the documentary, yourself and some colleagues kept pointing your phone at things and asking an assistant, Alpha, what was going on. And I was yelling at the computer, as I usually do, and said, this guy needs glasses. Like, he needs smart glasses to be able to do it. The phone is the wrong form factor. What is your vision for AI glasses and when is the rollout happening?

[12:34](https://realalpha.app/v/bgBfobN2A7A/?t=754) I think you're exactly right. And that was our conclusion. It's very obvious when you sort of dog food these things and internally that, as you saw from the film, we were holding up, you know, you're holding up your phone to get it to tell you about the real world. And it's amazing it works, but it's clearly not the right form factor for a lot of things you want to do. you know cooking or you're roaming around the city and asking for directions or recommendations um or even helping the you know partially sighted there's a huge i think use case there to help uh with those types of uh situations and um and for that i think you need something that's hands free and the obvious thing is for those of us anyway that wear glasses like me is that is to put it on glasses but there may well be other devices too i'm not sure that glasses is the

[13:22](https://realalpha.app/v/bgBfobN2A7A/?t=802) final form factor but it's definitely it's obviously a clear next form factor and of course at google and an alphabet we have a long history with glasses and maybe we're a bit too early in the past but i think the my analysis of it and talking to the people working on that project was a couple of things that the form factor was a bit too chunky and clunky and the battery life and these kind of things which are now more or less solved but i think the thing it was missing was killer app and i think the killer app is universal digital assistant that's with you helping you in your everyday life and they're available to you on any surface on your computer on your browser on your phone but also on you know devices like glasses when you're uh you know walking around the city and i think it needs to be kind of seamless um and kind of knows uh each of those

[14:12](https://realalpha.app/v/bgBfobN2A7A/?t=852) contexts and understands each of those contexts around you and i think we're close now especially with gemini 3 i feel we finally got uh ai that is maybe powerful enough to make that a reality and we're you know it's one of the most exciting projects we're working on i would say and it's one of the things i'm personally working on is is making smart glasses really work uh and we hope to we've we've done some great partnerships with warby parker and gentle monster and samsung to build these next generation glasses. And you should start seeing that, you know, maybe by the summer. Yeah. Warby Parker did have a filing that said that these glasses are coming out pretty soon this year. Yeah. And the prototype design, it depends how, you know, when prototype phase, it depends how quickly that advances. But I think it's going to happen very soon. And I think it

[15:00](https://realalpha.app/v/bgBfobN2A7A/?t=900) will be, you know, a category, a new category defining technology. Given your personal involvement is it safe to say that this is a pretty important initiative yeah it's one well yes but it's i mean i you know i like to it's it's not just as important obviously i like spending my own time on important things but i like to be at the push the most cutting edge thing and and and and and that's often the hardest thing and picking interim goals and giving confidence to the team and and also just sort of understanding if the timing's right and over the years i've been doing this the many you know the decades now um you know i've got quite good at doing that so i try to uh be at the the most cutting edge parts of um i feel i can make the most difference there