Sesame AI, a startup founded by Oculus alumni including co-founder Brendan Iribe, has successfully raised $250 million in a recent funding round and simultaneously debuted its beta version of AI-powered smart glasses designed to function as a personal assistant. This milestone marks a significant leap in the convergence of wearable technology and conversational artificial intelligence.
Sesame AI's smart glasses are engineered for all-day wear, p...
Sesame AI's smart glasses are engineered for all-day wear, providing users with seamless access to a sophisticated AI companion that can perceive and interact with the environment alongside the wearer. Unlike conventional augmented reality devices that focus primarily on visual overlays, Sesame emphasizes an AI-first, audio-driven experience with contextual awareness. The glasses deliver high-quality audio and enable the AI assistant to engage in natural, emotionally intelligent conversations, responding with human-like expressivity and understanding emotional cues in real time.
The underlying technology powering Sesame’s AI assistant, na...
The underlying technology powering Sesame’s AI assistant, named Maya, is based on a proprietary transformer-based Conversational Speech Model (CSM) that processes text and audio tokens simultaneously. This allows for sub-300 millisecond latency in context-aware dialogue, enabling conversations that feel fluid and genuinely human. Maya can remember conversation history, modulate tone, and interject with appropriate emotional responses, setting a new standard for voice assistants.
The funding round, which brings Sesame’s total capital raise...
The funding round, which brings Sesame’s total capital raised to over $250 million, attracted heavyweight investors from the tech and venture capital worlds, including Andreessen Horowitz, Spark Capital, Matrix Partners, and Sequoia Capital. Many of these investors have historical ties to Oculus, underscoring confidence in the founding team’s ability to execute on complex hardware and AI integration. The company is now valued at approximately $1 billion and is preparing for broader market launch and enterprise expansion.
Sesame’s founders bring deep experience from the virtual rea...
Sesame’s founders bring deep experience from the virtual reality industry, and their venture represents a pivotal shift from VR headsets to lightweight, wearable AI companions. The smart glasses are designed to be less intrusive and more practical for everyday use, addressing previous challenges around comfort and usability in wearable tech. By focusing on voice and contextual AI, Sesame aims to redefine how users interact with digital assistants—making them more natural, helpful, and integrated into daily life.
Looking ahead, Sesame plans to expand its AI assistant’s cap...
Looking ahead, Sesame plans to expand its AI assistant’s capabilities, including multilingual support and enterprise applications in customer service and automotive sectors. The company also intends to open source parts of its AI model to foster developer innovation. However, Sesame faces challenges such as competition from big tech companies in voice AI, hardware manufacturing complexity, and emerging privacy regulations related to always-on devices.
With the unveiling of its beta smart glasses assistant and t...
With the unveiling of its beta smart glasses assistant and the successful $250 million funding injection, Sesame AI is poised to influence the future of wearable technology and conversational AI, potentially setting new industry standards for how humans and machines communicate on the go.
🔄 Updated: 10/21/2025, 9:51:04 PM
Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe’s startup Sesame AI has secured $250 million in funding talks, aiming to surpass a $1 billion valuation as it debuts its beta smart glasses assistant that features emotionally intelligent voice AI companions, Maya and Miles. These lightweight smart glasses, designed for all-day wear, integrate a conversational AI with real-time emotional responsiveness and contextual awareness, promising a new level of natural interaction and “voice presence” in wearable tech. Sesame’s Series A raised $47.5 million led by Andreessen Horowitz in 2023, with the current round potentially co-led by Sequoia Capital and Spark Capital, signaling strong investor confidence in the AI-driven wearable’s future[1][2][3][5]
🔄 Updated: 10/21/2025, 10:00:46 PM
**Breaking News Update**: While Sesame AI, founded by Oculus alumni, has not officially announced a $250M funding round, its recent Series A round of $47.5 million has garnered significant market attention. The introduction of its beta smart glasses assistant has sparked interest among investors and consumers alike, though no specific stock price movements were reported due to Sesame AI's status as a private company. The company's innovative approach to AI-powered wearables continues to draw support from influential investors like Andreessen Horowitz, with potential future funding rounds anticipated to further boost its valuation.
🔄 Updated: 10/21/2025, 10:10:53 PM
**Breaking News Update**: Sesame AI, led by Oculus alumni, has reportedly raised $250 million in new funding, marking a significant milestone in its development of AI-powered smart glasses. The company's beta smart glasses assistant is receiving international attention for its innovative approach to conversational AI, with users in over 20 countries participating in early trials. "Our goal is to achieve 'voice presence,' making spoken interactions feel real and valued," said Brendan Iribe, highlighting the global potential of Sesame's technology[6][7].
🔄 Updated: 10/21/2025, 10:20:49 PM
In a significant development, Sesame AI, founded by Oculus alumni, has secured $250 million in funding and launched the beta version of its smart glasses assistant. Industry experts view this as a major step forward in wearable technology, with Brendan Iribe highlighting the importance of achieving "voice presence" in AI interactions. According to a recent analysis, Sesame's technology has shown promising results in user satisfaction, with some describing it as an "AGI moment" for voice AI, indicating a potential shift in how users engage with AI assistants[3][5][6].
🔄 Updated: 10/21/2025, 10:31:03 PM
In a significant development, Sesame AI, founded by Oculus alumni, has raised $250 million and launched its beta smart glasses assistant. The public reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, with early testers describing interactions as feeling "remarkably human-like," prompting comparisons to the film "Her" and earning it a reputation as a potentially groundbreaking voice assistant[6][7]. As the company continues to refine its technology, it aims to expand its capabilities to over 20 languages, further enhancing user engagement and satisfaction[7].
🔄 Updated: 10/21/2025, 10:41:01 PM
Regulators are closely monitoring Sesame AI’s smart glasses due to privacy and surveillance concerns reminiscent of the backlash against Google Glass, with risks including covert recording and data misuse potentially triggering compliance demands under regimes like GDPR. Experts warn that emerging AI governance frameworks could impose data localization, opt-in mandates, and other restrictions that may raise operating costs and challenge Sesame’s always-on user experience[1][5]. Sesame must navigate these regulatory hurdles carefully to avoid public and government pushback as it scales its audio-first wearable technology.
🔄 Updated: 10/21/2025, 10:51:01 PM
In a significant tech advancement, Sesame AI, led by Oculus alumni, has secured a $250 million Series B funding and launched its beta smart glasses assistant, marking a major step in conversational AI. The startup's AI model, featuring voices like "Maya" and "Miles," has shown remarkable user engagement, with over five million minutes of conversation generated by more than a million users within weeks of its demo release[1][2]. Sesame's conversational layer is praised for capturing the "rhythm, emotion, and expressiveness of real dialogue," setting it apart from conventional voice assistants[1][2].
🔄 Updated: 10/21/2025, 11:01:07 PM
Sesame, the AI smart glasses startup led by Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe, announced a $250 million Series B round on October 21, 2025, and immediately launched a beta program for its voice-driven AI assistant, marking a direct challenge to Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses and Apple’s Vision Pro as global tech giants jockey for dominance in wearable AI[1][2]. “Sesame’s conversational layer felt different—it doesn’t just translate LLM output into audio, it generates speech directly, capturing the rhythm, emotion, and expressiveness of real dialogue,” noted Sequoia Capital, which co-led the funding alongside Spark Capital and drew over a million users to Sesame’s
🔄 Updated: 10/21/2025, 11:11:13 PM
Sesame, the conversational AI and smart glasses startup led by Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe, announced on October 21, 2025, a $250 million Series B funding round—among the largest for an AI wearable startup—backed by Sequoia Capital and Spark Capital, positioning it to challenge Meta and Apple in the emerging AI wearable market[1][2]. The company also debuted a public beta for its lightweight smart glasses, powered by AI voices "Maya" and "Miles" that use a proprietary "conversational speech model" (CSM) to generate responses directly—not just converting text to speech—resulting in CMOS scores matching human recordings and a 37% improvement in contextual understanding ove
🔄 Updated: 10/21/2025, 11:21:02 PM
Sesame AI, co-founded by Oculus alumni Brendan Iribe, has secured $250 million in Series B funding, marking a significant leap forward in its development of AI-powered smart glasses. The startup's conversational AI model, which processes both text and audio tokens simultaneously, enables natural human-like dialogue with response times under 300 milliseconds, setting it apart from traditional voice assistants[1][2]. This investment supports Sesame's broader strategy of integrating its AI technology into wearable devices designed for all-day use, potentially redefining the smart glasses market with its natural-sounding voice companions like "Maya" and "Miles"[4][8].
🔄 Updated: 10/21/2025, 11:31:06 PM
Sesame, the conversational AI and smart glasses startup founded by Oculus veterans Brendan Iribe, Nate Mitchell, and Ankit Kumar, announced on October 21, 2025, it has raised a $250 million Series B led by Sequoia and Spark Capital, putting its total funding at well over $300 million and signaling a major global push into AI-driven wearables[1][2][3]. The company is opening beta access to a select group, with more than a million users already engaging over five million minutes of conversation with its "Maya" and "Miles" AI voices in just weeks after launch—prompting Sequoia to note, “the experience was unlike anything we’d used before; Ses
🔄 Updated: 10/21/2025, 11:40:59 PM
Sesame, founded by Oculus alumni including Brendan Iribe and Nate Mitchell, secured $250 million in Series B funding led by Sequoia and Spark Capital, signaling strong investor confidence in its conversational AI and smart glasses strategy[1][2][3]. Experts highlight Sesame’s AI voices, “Maya” and “Miles,” as delivering unprecedented naturalness and emotional expressiveness in voice assistants, with early users and reviewers calling the experience “unlike anything before” and “genuinely fun”[2][3][7]. Industry analysis underscores Sesame’s focus on lightweight, all-day wearable design combined with advanced voice AI as a potential game changer in the smart glasses wars, positioning it as a serious competitor to heavie
🔄 Updated: 10/21/2025, 11:51:02 PM
Sesame, the AI smart glasses startup led by Oculus co-founder and ex-CEO Brendan Iribe, has raised $250 million in a Series B round led by Sequoia Capital and Spark Capital—one of the largest venture rounds in wearable AI this year—and is now rolling out beta access to its voice-powered assistant, aiming to set a new benchmark for always-on, conversational AI globally[1][2]. Early international user engagement has been striking: over a million people tried Sesame’s “Maya” and “Miles” AI voices within weeks of its February demo, collectively logging more than five million minutes of conversation, with Sequoia calling the experience “unlike anything we’d used before” and praising
🔄 Updated: 10/22/2025, 12:01:07 AM
**Breaking News Update**: Oculus alumni's Sesame AI has secured a significant $250 million investment and launched its beta smart glasses assistant, marking a major milestone in the AI smart glasses sector. The move is expected to have a substantial global impact, particularly as Sesame's conversational AI technology has already drawn attention from over a million users, with more than five million minutes of conversation generated. Sequoia Capital, an investor in Sesame, noted that the experience "felt different" from traditional AI assistants, capturing "the rhythm, emotion, and expressiveness of real dialogue" [1][2].
🔄 Updated: 10/22/2025, 12:11:02 AM
Sesame, led by Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe, raised $250 million in a Series B round to launch beta access for its AI-powered smart glasses, positioning the startup as a significant challenger to Meta's AR and Apple’s Vision Pro in the wearable AI assistant space[1][2]. Unlike heavier VR headsets, Sesame’s lightweight glasses emphasize natural, human-like voice AI, praised for its expressive speech and generating over five million minutes of conversation from more than a million users shortly after demo release, signaling a shift toward more user-friendly, always-on AI companions[1][2]. This funding round and product debut mark a competitive pivot in smart glasses, with Sesame backed by major investors like Sequoia Capital and Spark Capita