Sesame's AI Glasses Blend Style With Smart Conversation

Sesame, a startup co-founded by Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe and former Ubiquity6 CTO Ankit Kumar, is making waves with a bold idea: smart glasses that don't just look good but talk like a friend. Fresh off a $250 million Series B funding round in October 2025, the company is betting big on blending fashion with conversational AI. Unlike the clunky voice assistants of the past, Sesame's technology, powered by its Conversational Speech Model, delivers responses in 200 to 300 milliseconds, mimicking the pace of human chatter. The goal? A lightweight, stylish pair of glasses you'd wear all day, with an AI companion that feels uncannily real.

Sesame emerged from stealth in February 2025, when its Maya and Miles AI voice demos went viral, racking up over five million minutes of conversation from a million users in just weeks. Outlets like The Verge called the experience 'genuinely fun,' praising its natural flow. Now, Sesame is opening its iOS app to beta testers, giving a select group a chance to try this tech firsthand. But as the startup pushes forward, it's not just about cool gadgets; it's about redefining how we interact with machines.

Sesame isn't the first to dream of smart glasses. Back in 2013, Google Glass promised a sci-fi future but stumbled hard. People bristled at its camera, dubbing wearers 'Glassholes' for privacy invasions, and bans popped up in bars and theaters. By 2015, Google shelved the consumer version, pivoting to enterprise use. The lesson? Social acceptability matters as much as tech. Sesame seems to get this, teaming up with fashion-forward designs to make its glasses something you'd actually want to wear.

Contrast that with Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses, which accounted for 78% of AI-enabled smart glasses shipments globally in the first half of 2025, up from 46% in the first half of 2024. By partnering with a trusted eyewear brand, Meta made glasses that didn't scream 'tech experiment.' Yet, privacy concerns linger; researchers showed Meta's glasses could identify strangers via facial recognition, despite LED indicators. Sesame's challenge is clear: build trust with subtle design and transparent privacy measures, or risk repeating Google's mistakes.

What sets Sesame apart is its tech. Traditional voice assistants like Siri or Alexa rely on multi-step processes, converting speech to text and back, losing nuances like tone or laughter. Sesame's Conversational Speech Model skips those steps, using a single transformer architecture to process audio and text together. The result is speech that captures rhythm, emotion, and even pauses, making it feel like a real conversation. Tests show it nails tricky tasks like pronouncing 'lead' correctly based on context, a feat older systems struggle with.

This tech isn't just for show. With 90% of consumers finding voice search more convenient than typing, per recent studies, Sesame's glasses could make tasks like navigation or translation seamless. You can ask your glasses for directions while biking, no phone required. But there's a catch: the system's trained mostly on English data, so non-English speakers might not get the same smooth experience yet. Expanding to the 3.4 billion non-English speakers globally could unlock huge potential.

Always-on microphones and cameras sound convenient, but they raise red flags. The EU's GDPR, for instance, classifies biometric data like voices or faces as highly sensitive, requiring explicit consent for processing. Sesame's glasses, with their constant recording potential, could struggle to meet these rules. In public spaces, bystanders might not even know they're being recorded, echoing Google Glass's backlash. Researchers have already shown how similar tech can identify people without consent, pulling up names and addresses in seconds.

Sesame's not blind to this. Its beta program asks testers to keep details confidential, hinting at careful rollout plans. Still, the company needs robust safeguards, like on-device processing to limit cloud data transfers or clear consent mechanisms. Without these, privacy advocates and regulators could push back hard, especially as 32% of voice assistant users already report frustration with misunderstandings, per recent surveys.

For users, Sesame's glasses promise freedom from screens. With 57% of Americans checking phones 144 times daily, a hands-free AI could cut that habit, offering quick answers or translations on the go. Visually impaired users or seniors might find voice-first interfaces a game-changer for accessibility. Enterprises, too, see potential: 77% of organizations plan to boost conversational AI spending by 2027, especially in customer service or automotive interfaces.

But it's not all smooth sailing. Businesses face integration hurdles, and consumers might balk at prices, likely $300-$800 based on market trends. Battery life, capped at 60-90 minutes of AI use, could frustrate users, and public stigma around camera-equipped glasses persists. Sesame's success hinges on solving these while delivering a product that feels as natural to wear as it does to talk to.

Sesame's $250 million haul, backed by Sequoia and Spark Capital, signals big investor confidence. The AI glasses market, valued at $2.3 billion in 2024, is projected to hit $7.2 billion by 2034, growing 12% annually. But competition is fierce. Meta's market dominance and Apple's Vision Pro, despite its $3,500 price, set high bars. Sesame's edge lies in its voice tech and Oculus veterans like Nate Mitchell, who know how to build immersive hardware.

Looking ahead, partnerships could make or break Sesame. Teaming up with eyewear giants like Luxottica or telecoms for distribution could mirror Meta's playbook. Open-sourcing its CSM-1B model, with 13,000 GitHub stars, invites developers to build apps, potentially creating a vibrant ecosystem. If Sesame nails the balance of style, smarts, and trust, it could lead the charge in making AI wearables a daily staple.