Google Says Clicks Have Not Gone Down. Publishers Disagree. Google positions its AI Overviews and new AI Mode not as predators of publisher traffic, but as catalysts for richer user engagement and higher-quality clicks. Liz Reid, Google’s head of Search, asserts organic click volume has been “relatively stable” year-over-year, and that “average click quality has increased,” meaning users spend longer on the sites they do visit. Publishers and digital-leaders warn these assurances mask a troubling reality. SimilarWeb data indicates that major news outlets like Forbes, CNN, and Daily Mail, have seen traffic slump up to 40% since Google launched AI Overviews. Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince calls Google’s AI search features a threat to the web’s fundamental “referral economy,” pushing companies toward pay-for-access models to preserve content viability.
Ray Ban AI Glasses Selling Millions As Quest VR Slumps. Meta’s Reality Labs generated $370 million in Q2 2025 revenue, a 5% year-over-year increase. The growth was attributed to strong sales of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, which more than tripled from the same period last year. Despite this, Quest headset sales declined, continuing a downward trend. Meta has reportedly canceled its planned Quest 4 headset, shifting focus to a new device with a tethered compute puck. This new headset is expected to run Horizon OS, Meta’s standalone operating system for mixed reality. The company says it is now optimizing its hardware roadmap based on market feedback and evolving product strategy. The Quest 3S, released earlier this year, remains available as Meta’s current-generation headset.
Meta Shows Off the Future of Mixed Reality with Tiramisu and Boba 3 Prototypes. Meta Reality Labs used SIGGRAPH 2025 to unveil two striking VR research prototypes, signaling possible pathways for the next generation of immersive visual systems. The Tiramisu prototype delivers a “visual Turing test” with hyperreal fidelity—featuring 90 pixels per degree (3.6× the Quest 3), ultra-high contrast (~3×), and 1,400 nit brightness. However, it compromises on field of view and portability, remaining bulky and heavy. In contrast, Boba 3 and its VR-only variant prioritize immersion with an ultra-wide 180° × 120° field of view—approaching human vision—while sustaining 4K‑by‑4K per-eye resolution using Quest 3–class display and lens technologies. Both prototypes are firmly in the research stage; neither is intended for immediate consumer release. Still, they spotlight Meta’s foundational push to elevate realism and immersive boundaries across its future XR roadmap.
Meta Is About to Meet A Tidal Wave of Big Competitors. Scott Stein of CNet takes a deep dive into what comes next for VR. Stein says that 2025 marks a pivotal moment for XR, with major players including Meta, Apple, Google, Samsung, and Valve shifting attention toward glasses-based devices. Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses are gaining traction, and Meta is expected to unveil a neural input wristband alongside new display-enabled glasses at its Connect conference this fall. Samsung and Google are launching Project Moohan, an Android XR headset that integrates AI features and showcases Google Play and Gemini integration in VR. Apple is rumored to be updating the Vision Pro with a new M-series chip and spatial controller support, while working quietly on smaller glasses. Valve may re-enter the scene with a Deckard headset that works standalone or tethered. The smart glasses category is anchored by devices like Meta Ray-Bans, Xreal, and Viture. It is evolving rapidly, with wearability, battery life, and AI features driving innovation. Stein suggests this “year of scattered pieces” will shape the post-headset era of spatial computing.
Brilliant Labs’ All Day AR Smartglasses. Brilliant Labs has introduced Halo, its next-gen, open‑source smart glasses priced at $299, now available for pre-order with shipping expected in late November 2025. Weighing just over 40 grams, Halo includes a 0.2‑inch full‑color micro‑OLED display, bone‑conduction speakers, a microphone array, IMU, and an optical sensor running on an ultra‑efficient Alif B1 chip with an NPU, enabling up to 14 hours of battery life. Halo’s AI assistant, Noa, supports natural real‑time conversations with context awareness, anchored by Narrative, a memory system that retains details like names and past interactions. Its experimental Vibe Mode enables users to generate custom apps via voice commands.
Doomscrolling Is Dead, Content Is Liquid, Declares Character.ai CEO as Its Social Newsfeed Launches. Character.AI launched a Social Feed For its AI Avatars, that features interactive, mixable, characters and entertainment produced by users and creators. With the rollout of the AI character feed of its 20 million users, Character.ai is the first synthetic social platform. Content is created and recreated by users with AI. In this way, every post is an entry point into an evolving, participatory storyworld.
IMAX Brings AI-Generated Shorts to the Big Screen. IMAX is partnering with Runway to screen ten AI-generated short films from the 2025 AI Film Festival across its big screens in ten U.S. cities, August 17–20. Selected from an impressive 6,000 submissions, the finalists span genres and subjects. The announcement ignited passionate backlash online, with critics challenging AI’s artistic validity and environmental footprint. Yet the festival and screenings also underscore AI’s evolving democratizing role and its enhancement of human creativity.
AI Film: “LAST CALL BEFORE A.G.I | Found Footage from the Future” by KNGMKR (aka Matt Zein).
This column has a companion, The AI/XR Podcast, hosted by its author, Charlie Fink, and Ted Schilowitz, former studio executive, and founding Red Camera executive, and Rony Abovitz, founder of Magic Leap. This week our guest is Brent Bushnell, founder and CEO of Dreampark. We can be found on Spotify, iTunes, and YouTube.
What We’re Reading
Remember the Metaverse? Zuck Doesn’t Either (Graham Barlow/TechRadar)
Ex-Google Exec Says Job Losses Will Be Huge (CNBC)
