The Plantation, Florida-based AR unicorn today announced it\u2019s extending the partnership through a three-year agreement with Google that will position it as \u201can AR ecosystem partner to support companies building glasses,\u201d including work on display systems, optics, and system integration for AR devices.<\/p>\n
Additionally, Magic Leap and Google showed off an AI glasses prototype at FII, which the companies say will serve as a prototype and reference design for Google\u2019s Android XR ecosystem.\u00a0Android XR is designed to run on a variety of XR devices, including the recently launched Samsung Galaxy XR<\/a> (ex-Project Moohan), as well as future AR glasses, and smart glasses from a variety of hardware partners, including Samsung, Warby Parker, and Gentle Monster.<\/p>\n \u201cThe demo shows how Magic Leap\u2019s technology, integrated with Google\u2019s Raxium microLED light engine, brings digital content seamlessly into the world,\u201d Magic Leaps says. \u201cThe prototypes worn on stage illustrate how comfortable, stylish smart eyewear is possible and the video showed the potential for users to stay present in the real world while tapping into the knowledge and functionality of multimodal AI.\u201d<\/p>\n Note<\/strong>: It\u2019s uncertain whether the prototype above is new, or actually Google\u2019s previously teased smart glasses<\/a> seen at Google I\/O this year. We\u2019ve reached out to Magic Leap and will update when it\u2019s more clear.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u201cMagic Leap\u2019s optics, display systems, and hardware expertise have been essential to advancing our Android XR glasses concepts to life,\u201d said Shahram Izadi, VP & GM of Google XR. \u201cWe\u2019re fortunate to collaborate with a team whose years of hands-on AR development uniquely set them up to help shape what comes next.\u201d<\/p>\n Founded in 2010, Magic Leap promised to revolutionize AR with its lightfield display technology, raising over $4 billion in funding from major investors like\u00a0Google, Alibaba, Qualcomm, AT&T,\u00a0Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund, and Axel Springer.<\/p>\n Its first headset, Magic Leap 1 (also stylized as \u2018One\u2019) however underperformed and struggled to find a viable consumer market when it launched in 2018, forcing the company to pivot to enterprise and medical applications. This came alongside a leadership shakeup that would see founder Rony Abovitz step down as CEO in 2020, making way for Pegggy Johnson, formerly of Qualcomm and Microsoft.<\/p>\n A year after the enterprise release of Magic Leap 2 in 2022, Johnson would be replaced as CEO by Ross Rosenberg, previously of Bain Capita, Danaher, First Solar and Belden. Rosenberg currently leads the company.<\/p>\n My Take<\/p>\n At the release of Magic Leap 1 in 2018, and consequently the height of consumer PC VR headsets, Magic Leap held conferences, courted influencers and media, and funded a fleet of expensive third-party apps aimed at gamers\u00a0and casual users. The world didn\u2019t even have a viable standalone VR platform yet,\u00a0and Magic Leap was hoping to kickstart AR headsets\u2014not glasses\u2014as the next dominant consumer computing platform.<\/p>\n The company also presumably burned through a good portion of its multi-billion dollar runway in the process to launch something that the market, developers, and even Magic Leap itself didn\u2019t really seem ready for. I, like most in the early days of XR, was skeptical. Too many pie in the sky (or \u2018whale in the sky\u2019) marketing videos. Never enough substance or clear direction to tell where things were really going for the company.<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, Magic Leap 1 didn\u2019t even really outperform Microsoft\u2019s staunchly enterprise HoloLens AR headset, or deliver on its promises of \u201clightfield photonics\u201d to allow for multiple focal planes. Its first \u2018Creator Edition\u2019 ML1 headset contained\u00a0a waveguide-based display with two focal planes. Nothing revolutionary, and at $2,300, too expensive of a platform for most consumer-focused studios to stomach.<\/p>\n But it did provide Magic Leap 2 to enterprise in 2022, which is exactly where it should have focused the entire time. But going that route from the get-go would have been less flashy, and probably less capable of attracting historic levels of funding.<\/p>\n Barring all else, Magic Leap\u2019s greatest sin was undoubtedly being a decade too early. Only now it seems that companies are building out the requisite customized chips, waveguides, light engines, everything,\u00a0and slimming it down into a digestible form factor. And big players like Meta, Google, Samsung and (likely, but unconfirmed) Apple are hoping to use smart glasses first\u00a0before serving up anything AR remotely targeted at consumers.<\/p>\n In the end, there\u2019s a good reason Magic Leap is still kicking, even this late in the game.\u00a0The company\u2019s latest funding round was a $590 million debt financing deal struck in January 2024, led by Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund. It seems to have the operational cash on hand, and has been rightfully deflated to make better use of it. That, and there\u2019s still real know-how at Magic Leap to go along with\u00a0a genuine pile of patents<\/a>, which I suspect the company is leveraging as it makes its second big transition: from enterprise headset platform creator to glorified AR parts supplier to a company that could\u00a0really play a big part in the coming AR glasses revolution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Magic Leap announced this week at the Future Investment Initiative (FII) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia its latest AR…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":341429,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[158,67,132,68,729,730],"class_list":{"0":"post-341428","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-virtual-reality","8":"tag-technology","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us","12":"tag-virtual-reality","13":"tag-vr"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115459110983745117","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/magic-leap-google.jpeg\")
<\/a>Image courtesy Magic Leap<\/p>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/magic-leap-2-openxr.jpg\")
<\/a>Magic Leap 2 | Image courtesy Magic Leap<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/girl-with-ml-logo.jpg\"){kind=logo}
<\/a>Magic Leap 1 | Image courtesy Magic Leap<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/magic-leap-whale-jump.jpg\")
<\/a>Magic Leap Concept Art (2015) | Image courtesy Magic Leap<\/p>\n