The Next App You Build Won’t Run on a Phone

The compute detour

Ian Sierra: Why would AR and VR get cheaper because of AI?

We’re so concentrated on distributing the specific compute and hardware towards AI that we’re skewing all the compute, all the hardware, all the technology, all the chips towards AI development, towards data centres, towards energy.

That in itself is going to create a new solution to go back into the hardware of augmented reality and virtual reality, and to make it more economically plausible for users and everyone to come in and purchase one of these devices.

And the pitch to the buyer?

Think about it. Now you have the ability to do everything you could from a phone, but just straighten your eyes. You have the ability to enter new worlds, to be face-to-face with somebody from the other side of the world, and to bring digitalisation into realisation.

He is careful about the pace.

It’s a slow-growing thing. In 2025 and 2026 it’s been growing, especially in the interior design space.

The market data agrees with him on one half of that and argues with him on the other. Display-less smart glasses shipped about 2.25 million units in the first quarter of 2026 alone, near what the whole category managed across all of 2024, and grew 167 percent year over year, according to IDC. Headsets went the other way. VR-only shipments have been contracting sharply even as glasses surge. If the correction arrives, IDC’s numbers suggest it arrives through eyewear first.

Selling a home that does not exist

You keep coming back to interior design. Why there?

You go now and you want to buy a penthouse in one of these huge big places, and it’s not even built. You go to an office that’s completely not even the building that they’re selling you the apartment unit in. However, they sell you the concept. They sell you the idea of the vision.

They give you some AR glasses, some VR headsets, and they’re like, look, walk into your new home. That’s not even going to be built until 2029, yet they’re already selling you on this, and people do purchase it. That’s just a way of selling the future.

This is now standard practice rather than a pilot. Developers use photorealistic renders and VR walkthroughs to open pre-sales months before a model unit exists, which is how they secure lending terms and stabilise cash flow before ground breaks. The format is used most often on off-plan luxury inventory and with international buyers who will never stand in the room before signing.

Escobar has a commercial interest in that shift. House AI, the app his company operates, generates AI interior renders, and Addicting Elements has been testing a service line selling visual property makeovers into the Miami luxury market rather than selling app usage.

Generation Alpha already lives there

Who is actually wearing these today?

Kids are already using this as well. Generation Alpha is blowing up with playing Roblox on augmented reality and virtual reality.

Roblox reported about 132 million daily active users in the first quarter of 2026 against roughly 381.8 million monthly, with close to 50 million of them under the age of 13 and average session time above two hours a day. The platform runs on Meta Quest alongside phones, PC and console. Of the four, mobile still does most of the volume, so the VR piece is a leading indicator rather than the main event. Which is roughly the claim.

Meta made it wearable

We know Meta is going full-on on this because they’re making it a stylish thing where you can wear these Ray-Bans and these other types of glasses. They made it cool.

Also, on social media, you can even see on Instagram where there’s a little sign that says, oh, this was taken through a Meta glass. That just separates you from the rest of the people. Exclusivity is what’s being sold, and I’m a big believer in that.

Meta held 69.2 percent of global smart glasses shipments in the first quarter of 2026, on the strength of its EssilorLuxottica partnership. The eyewear group reported selling more than seven million Ray-Ban and Oakley Meta units across 2025, more than three times the roughly two million moved in 2023 and 2024 put together. Its plan was to reach ten million units a year by the end of 2026. Demand pulled the timeline forward, and the two companies have discussed doubling that to twenty million.

The distinction Escobar draws matters more than it looks. IDC’s read is that the category is winning because people are willing to wear it to the grocery store, not because the technology finally matured. The fashion partnership is the product strategy.

From apps to games

So mobile apps go away?

Look, apps are going to continue growing. I think mobile apps are going to expand. Obviously it’s going to be a huge market. There are going to be daily new changes. I feel like it’s going to be very volatile.

There are going to be tools that are globally adopted, and there are going to be these apps that are just trending apps. An app that’s cool today because of some viral thing that somebody did, and then another app that’s pretty much a skeleton. They’re still living.

The whole point of what I’m trying to say is that it’s going to change. We’re going to go from mobile apps to VR and AR apps, and then eventually we’re just going to go into the consoles and the PCs. You’re going to be seeing people just create complete video games. You’re no longer creating a little app. Now you’re creating an entire video game, and that is where it gets interesting.

What’s the trigger?

That is where the ecosystem can definitely shift. When the level of difficulty that you can accomplish with vibe coding in terms of hard tech becomes so grand that it would take an entire company and $500 million, but you can just do it straight from your home.

That is very close to where we will be in a couple of years. It is going to be insane, and the amount of creativity is going to be insane.

Back to the constraint

For all the hardware talk, Escobar lands where he started.

This is the second part of a two-part conversation with Jeffrey Escobar. Part one covered the collapse in app distribution and the case for documenting everything.

By the numbers

Common questions

Why would AR and VR hardware get cheaper because of AI?

Jeffrey Escobar argues that the chips, manufacturing capacity and energy infrastructure being built for AI data centres create a supply chain that later serves consumer headsets, making augmented and virtual reality devices economically plausible for ordinary buyers.

Are smart glasses selling better than VR headsets?

Yes. Display-less smart glasses shipped about 2.25 million units in the first quarter of 2026 alone, up 167 percent year over year, according to IDC. VR-only headset shipments contracted sharply over the same period.

What share of the smart glasses market does Meta hold?

Meta held 69.2 percent of global smart glasses shipments in the first quarter of 2026, on the strength of its EssilorLuxottica partnership. The eyewear group sold more than seven million Ray-Ban and Oakley Meta units across 2025.

How do property developers use VR to sell unbuilt homes?

Developers use photorealistic renders and VR walkthroughs to open pre-sales months before a model unit exists, which secures lending terms and stabilises cash flow before ground breaks. It is used most on off-plan luxury inventory and with international buyers.