The drive is fueled by two shifts: smartphones no longer excite users like before, and AI is enabling truly hands-free, heads-up computing. But the real challenge remains—can tech firms make smart glasses fashionable, useful, and worth wearing all day?

Qualcomm has enabled what one of its executives said was a strange and "most interesting" conversations with generative AI-powered smart glasses.

Qualcomm Inc., the top maker of smartphone processors, is making a bigger push into smart glasses with low-power components that can run artificial intelligence software.