Alibaba just fired its biggest shot yet at Meta's smart glasses empire. The Chinese tech giant announced its Quark AI glasses will hit pre-sale tomorrow for $660, positioning them as a direct competitor to Meta's Ray-Ban collaboration while simultaneously launching a new ChatGPT challenger. The dual announcement signals Alibaba's aggressive pivot toward consumer AI hardware.
Alibaba just declared war on the smart glasses market. The Chinese e-commerce giant announced Thursday that its highly anticipated Quark AI glasses will launch at 4,699 yuan ($660) with pre-orders starting October 24 on its Tmall platform. But here's the kicker - after discounts, the glasses drop to 3,999 yuan, making them a direct price competitor to Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses.
The timing couldn't be more strategic. While Meta has dominated headlines with its Ray-Ban collaboration, Alibaba has been quietly building its consumer AI arsenal. The Quark glasses, powered by the company's Qwen large language model, pack hands-free calling, music streaming, and real-time translation into a wearable that ships this December.
Investors are already betting on Alibaba's consumer pivot. The company's Hong Kong shares closed 1.7% higher, with U.S.-listed stock also climbing in premarket trading. According to market analysts via CNBC, the dual product launch represents Alibaba's most aggressive move into consumer AI hardware to date.
But Alibaba isn't stopping at glasses. The company simultaneously unveiled AI Chat Assistant, a new chatbot mode within its existing Quark app that's powered by the latest Qwen3 models. The feature allows users to switch between AI search and conversation in one interface, with capabilities spanning photo editing, problem-solving, and AI writing - a direct challenge to OpenAI's ChatGPT dominance.
This isn't Alibaba's first rodeo with AI hardware. The company first teased the Quark glasses in July, but kept pricing under wraps until now. The $660 price point positions them competitively against Meta's offerings while undercutting some premium models.
The competitive landscape is heating up fast. Xiaomi, another Chinese tech giant, released its own AI glasses earlier this year, creating a three-way battle for the nascent wearable computing market. Industry experts see smart glasses as the next frontier beyond smartphones, with multiple tech giants racing to claim territory.
