Nothing is also set to expand beyond smartphones, with CEO Carl Pei plotting an AI-first roadmap that covers smart glasses and other nascent hardware. Fresh off a $200 million Series C that values the company at around $1.3 billion, the London-based startup believes the next decade in technology will be defined by devices that feel more human and software that can slither across screens with snake-like charm.
AI hardware expands outside of smartphones
Pei’s argument is simple: software integration has far outpaced hardware improvement when it comes to the slabs in our pockets. It’s the point where he believes the next leap forward in consumer electronics will come, not from another spec bump, but from hardware designed to support AI-first experiences. That’s a direct nod to wearables and ambient devices that surface help in the moment — not apps buried behind taps and swipes.
The company’s vision also includes creating experiences non-specific to any particular type of device. Nothing is investigating how a functional layer could move between interfaces — from smart glasses to home robots and even vehicle systems — with the capacity to learn preferences, offer recommendations and propose deeply personalised interactions. That translates to pushing context, voice and vision models closer to the edge and orchestrating heavier inference in the cloud when it makes sense.
From smart glasses to the next interface
The smartphone is a hard act to follow, but smart glasses have momentum. Meta and Ray-Ban have already proved there’s consumer demand for lightweight camera- and voice-enabled glasses that cost just $299 to $399, offering hands-free photo capture, calls, info bits of on-the-go AI help. Apple’s Vision Pro is an entirely different animal, or a $3,499 spatial computer as the case may be rather than everyday eyewear, but it has spurred a crowd of developers on to mixed reality and multimodal interface possibilities.
Samsung has its own XR plans, partnering with Google on an Android-centric platform for head-worn devices. Once again, it is Qualcomm that continues to play godfather in seeding the category with purpose-built silicon and reference designs. For a company that is all about conception and playful UIs, smart glasses are the perfect canvas: general-release fit and finish, ready access to AI assistance and minimal “friction.”
The technical hurdles are well-known. Glasses need to be light (ideally under 50g), comfortable, thermally efficient and power-sipping enough to last a start-to-end-of-day or at least several hours of mixed use. Voice pickup in noisy environments, low-latency camera-to-AI pipelines, and private, legible notification systems are table stakes. Beyond that, however, users will be demanding privacy controls as familiar and intuitive as a mute switch — a lesson hard-learned from early wearables and the continuing public glare.
An OS that talks to interfaces across devices
Nothing’s most audacious claim is that it is striving for a hardware-agnostic operating layer that adapts to each interface while customising itself around every user. It’s like a personal runtime that renders differently on glasses, phone or robot but with context, memory and preferences intact. That takes a mix of on-device models for responsiveness, edge-cloud coordination for heavier tasks and a solid privacy posture to build trust.
This approach reflects where the industry is going. Google is building Android for XR. Platform players race to make voice, vision and intent understanding feel instant and invisible. Research analysts at outfits like IDC and Counterpoint have pointed out that as AI’s functionality has become commoditized — built into everything from wearables to extended reality (XR) glasses — the defining aspect is less raw compute than orchestration — how seamlessly the system senses, predicts and responds across various devices.
What success will demand from emerging AI hardware
It will not be vision that counts so much as execution. There are plenty of cautionary stories in the market: new AI gadgets that were released before their software was ready, or pieces of hardware that reviewers sang praises for that ended up not finding a lasting use case. We won’t settle for smart glasses that do little more than relay notifications; the best experiences will fold time to value — translation, identification, summarization, recall and guidance — into seconds without feeling invasive.
Pricing will also be decisive. Nothing’s phones have demonstrated that it can offer high design at lower price points, but the company will likely need to walk the line between premium materials and mass-market accessibility. “If Ray-Ban-like devices have already ground the category to a standstill near $300–$400 there’s no way a nascent entry is going to convince mainstream buyers to spend much more without some truly groundbreaking use case.”
The competitive backdrop for smart glasses and AI
Giants like Meta, Samsung, Google and Apple have been setting expectations; a challenger needs a strong point of view. It can’t rely on its design language, community-vetted launches, and lightweight software aesthetic to carry it. Collaboration — be it on optics, silicon, or reference designs — is going to be key for speeding time to market and lowering cost.
For now, the lesson is there: Nothing isn’t just planning another phone. It’s looking to establish the layer where AI meets everyday life — with smart glasses shaping up as the first big proving ground. If the company can mate style with battery life and truly useful on-the-go intelligence, it could punch above its weight in the battle to define what comes after the smartphone.