Alibaba’s AI-powered smart glasses officially went on sale Thursday, marking the Chinese tech giant’s latest effort to expand its consumer artificial intelligence ecosystem in an increasingly competitive market.
The Quark AI Glasses, first revealed in July, come in two models:
- S1, starting at 3,799 yuan ($536)
- G1, priced at 1,899 yuan
Both versions integrate Alibaba’s Qwen AI models — its in-house alternative to ChatGPT — and connect directly to the company’s new Qwen app. Users can control the glasses via voice, enabling hands-free translation, AI-generated meeting notes, and real-time access to virtual assistants.
The glasses feature embedded cameras, with the lenses functioning as displays. One notable feature lets users take photos of a product, after which the glasses display real-time price listings from Taobao, Alibaba’s flagship shopping platform.
Alibaba joins global players like Meta — which launched its $799 Ray-Ban Display smart glasses in September — in betting that AI glasses could become the next major consumer hardware category after smartphones. Chinese competitors including Xiaomi and Xreal are also pushing aggressively into the space, underscoring the accelerating pace of innovation.
The market, though still nascent, is projected to grow rapidly: industry forecasts from Omdia expect global shipments of AI glasses to surpass 10 million units by 2026, doubling year-over-year from 2025.
For Alibaba, the Quark glasses represent another step in its broader consumer AI strategy. The company recently reported strong momentum for its Qwen app, which hit 10 million downloads in its first week, while Alibaba Cloud — where the company books most of its AI-related revenue — posted an uptick in growth last quarter. The firm continues to invest heavily in new models and AI infrastructure as it competes with domestic rivals Baidu and Tencent.
Alibaba’s rapid deployment of Qwen across hardware, apps, and enterprise offerings follows its earlier push into agentic AI for business customers — most notably its agent-based B2B trade platform announced this year, which aims to transform procurement and global sourcing workflows.
