AI Glasses for Frontline Workers.

AI is transforming work behind a computer, but most physical work still happens without it. Technicians repair machines, operators run factories, and field workers build, inspect, install, and maintain the infrastructure around us.

AI needs to go where they go, and smart glasses are the way to make that happen. They let AI see what a worker sees, hear what they hear, guide them through a job, connect them to an expert, and document work as it happens.

Skilled worker shortages are growing while decades of experience leave the workforce. Mentra builds smart glasses that augment the people doing this work, helping them become more capable, productive, accurate, and safe while keeping the person at the center.

In 2018, Cayden built his first smart glasses from his university apartment. Around the same time, Alex Israelov was independently experimenting with smart glasses technology. They connected on Reddit in 2022, started building together, and demoed the open-source OpenSourceSmartGlasses project at CES 2023.

At CES, it became clear that the industry needed more than great hardware. There was no open platform for building and deploying smart glasses applications.

Cayden and Alex released SmartGlassesManager, an open-source framework for smart glasses applications. As people built on it and the project expanded, smart glasses needed a full operating system.

That became MentraOS, and in 2024 they decided to build a company around it. Cayden left MIT, Alex left his job at an AR startup in Hong Kong, and founding engineer Nicolo Micheletti left Tsinghua University.

Within months, we launched MentraOS, went through Y Combinator, and raised funding from Amazon, Toyota Ventures, Paul Graham, and others.

Then we built Mentra Live, our own smart glasses running on MentraOS.

We launched expecting developers and consumers to be the first major market. Instead, companies began buying Mentra Live to pilot with their workers across automotive, field service, manufacturing, logistics, construction, and pharma. They tested hands-free expert calls, automatic documentation, AI assistance, inspections, and guided work.

As we shipped more glasses and worked with those customers, the opportunity became clear. AI had transformed work behind a computer, while the people doing physical work had barely seen that transformation.

That is where we focused Mentra.

Our mission is to augment people so they can reach their full potential and become more capable than ever before.

We believe the best future for AI keeps people at the center. Smart glasses can give people better access to knowledge, perception, memory, and expertise while leaving judgment and control in human hands.

Mentra builds smart glasses applications for frontline workers and the open-source smart glasses operating system that makes them possible.

Our applications guide work, connect workers with remote experts, and document what happens automatically. MentraOS gives companies control over the hardware, software, AI, and data underneath them.

We build both because the best applications require control of the full stack.

Mentra is an open-source project because smart glasses see what people see, hear what people hear, and increasingly become an interface to AI. The people and companies using them should control the software they run, the models they use, and where their data goes.

That is why MentraOS is open source. Companies can build their own applications, integrate their own systems, choose their own AI, and deploy on infrastructure they control.