Snapchat CEO to Deliver Keynote at AWE 2025, Highlighting Company’s Push in XR Innovation

The head honcho at Snap Inc., the mastermind company behind Snapchat and those eye-catching Spectacles AR glasses, is all set to hit the spotlight at AWE 2025 this June. This grand stage offers Snap a prime opportunity to showcase their latest AR advancements, as they endeavor to carve out a stronger niche in the XR industry.

While Snap might currently be one of the few offering standalone AR glasses available today, it still sits on the fringe of the broader XR ecosystem. Why? Well, Snap’s approach to AR is a tad different from its major counterparts.

Devices like Quest have primarily zeroed in on gaming, alongside PC VR and PSVR 2. Meanwhile, Apple’s Vision Pro leans towards entertainment and productivity. On the contrary, Snap’s Spectacles took shape from the company’s social-focused view on AR, spotlighting experiences tied to real-world locales and multi-user interactions in shared spaces.

This June, Evan Spiegel, Snap’s CEO and co-founder, is set to take the main stage at AWE 2025, one of the largest and longest-running XR-focused gatherings worldwide. It’s a move to share Snap’s vision and lay down stronger bridges into the XR world.

The event, hosted in Long Beach, California from June 10th to 12th, is projected to draw over 6,000 attendees, feature 300 exhibitors, and have 400 speakers, all sprawling across a 150,000 sq ft expo floor. There’s still time to grab early-bird tickets, and Road to VR readers have a bonus opportunity for a 20% exclusive discount.

Following Spiegel’s keynote, presentations from industry stalwarts Qualcomm and XREAL are lined up, both having solidified their presence within the conference and the wider industry landscape.

Ironically, Snap’s deliberate creation of an AR platform from scratch is partly why it remains an outsider in XR’s broad spectrum. They’re not just crafting their own AR glasses—there’s Snap OS, a tailored operating system for Spectacles, and their own authoring tool, Lens Studio, that developers must adapt to instead of generic tools like Unity. This bespoke methodology, along with device specifics, makes porting existing XR content a bit of a challenge.

Yet, this ground-up approach highlights Snap’s earnest belief in the XR domain. Speaking with Road to VR, Scott Myers, Snap’s VP of Hardware, mentioned Spectacles’ ambition lies beyond being an extension of Snapchat. Snap envisions these glasses ultimately overtaking smartphones. This belief underscores the standalone nature of Spectacles, crafted to function independently of a phone or tether.

Myers emphasized the aim to have users looking through the glasses, not down at their phones. Besides its social-centric and location-based AR path, Snap focuses intensely on elevating its platform for developers by enhancing tools and actively incorporating feedback.

Myers stays in touch with progress by using Spectacles nearly every day to experiment with new features. He stated, “We’re collaborating with developers to streamline the development process as much as possible.”

Snap’s trajectory in the coming years will require strategic moves, as tech titans like Meta, Apple, and Google all vie in the race to create the go-to mainstream AR glasses.

Road to VR takes pride as the Premier Media Partner of AWE USA 2025, bringing readers an exclusive 20% discount on event tickets.