After years of 360 camera dominance, Insta360 is pivoting toward augmented reality glasses

Insta360 rules the 360-degree camera market, and now it’s eyeing smart glasses. The Chinese company holds 73 percent of worldwide marketshare in 360 cameras, and it just sold its 10 millionth camera. But its founders aren’t stopping at two hemispherical lenses on a stick. They’re aiming to become a “top imaging camera company” or even a tech company, according to cofounder Max Richter, and they’re already building mirrorless cameras and smart glasses to get there.

The Numbers Behind the Dominance

Insta360’s grip on 360 cameras is nearly total. The company owns 73 percent of the global market. It just spent $298 million on memory chips alone, a sum larger than GoPro’s entire valuation.

The company is also expanding into categories dominated by its rival DJI. It ships DJI-challenging drones, gimbals and gimbaled baby steadycams, and modular action cameras. In handheld smart cameras, Insta360 holds 20 percent of the market against DJI’s 73 percent. In Q2 2026, Insta360 had 43 percent of the detachable action camera market and 17 percent of non-detachable GoPro-style action cameras. Its new Luna Ultra already commands 6 percent marketshare in gimbaled cameras.

GoPro itself is a distant third, with just 3 percent of the smart camera market in Q2 2026 after shipments fell by half to 200,000 cameras in the quarter. Canon shipped 4.5 million digital cameras last year according to Nikkei data. DJI shipped 4.3 million cameras last quarter alone, according to IDC.

Smart Glasses and Mirrorless Cameras

Richter says Insta360 isn’t trying to replace the smartphone camera or fight DSLR-wielding professionals. He sees a middle ground between casual smartphone users and professional gear. “We don’t try to fight against the rise of the smartphone in photography and content creation,” he says. “We see that there’s an opportunity between smartphone users and professional cameras — a growing trend that people want to express themselves.”

His vision is a camera that sits between the two. If Insta360 sells smart glasses, he says they wouldn’t compete on AI features. The goal is capturing high-quality images conveniently, not an AI assistant on your face. That approach might avoid the “pervert glasses” problem, since the camera would be obvious rather than covert.

Founder JK Liu previously confirmed two mirrorless cameras are in development. One will have a shape “you have never thought of before,” Liu told MyNavi News in August. Liu reportedly became a billionaire when Insta360 went public last year.

“When you think about mirrorless, for us it would really go into making it more convenient and making a camera that is really suited for a new generation of content creators, not necessarily what’s already out there on the market,” Richter says.

The Drone Problem

Insta360 already distanced itself from its drone brand Antigravity ahead of the US drone ban. Its first drone beat the ban by weeks. Richter says the company isn’t working on drones. “When it comes to drones, it’s not something that Insta360 is working on,” he says, suggesting The Verge speak to Antigravity CEO Michael Shabun instead.

The US government could treat Insta360 like DJI and push back on its cameras too. Apple, Best Buy and Costco all stock Insta360 products, but that could change if Washington decides to enact a foreign camera ban.

Richter says he’s “quite confident” he can keep bringing cameras to people around the world. He promises full compliance with local laws, but admits the situation is unclear.

What the X6 Does

Insta360’s latest device, the X6, carries an onboard AI model and enough processing to automatically create a highlight reel while plugged in and charging. It also runs a 2.0 version of the “InstaFrame” feature, which tracks and frames a selected person and produces a video automatically.

The company is launching a new smartphone app feature for the X6 that creates 3D Gaussian splats with one tap. Cloud servers take an hour or two to process the video, and users get only four free splats per month, says Insta360 spokesperson Caroline Chen. Early results look neat.

The X6 is another small step toward the company’s grand vision of becoming the robot cameraman for the world. Not an actual humanoid robot, but devices that capture, move and edit themselves automatically, understanding intent with built-in AI tech.

Insta360 conquered 360 cameras, and now it’s eyeing glasses. Whether the US will embrace it remains an open question.

Source material: “Insta360 conquered 360 cameras — now it’s eyeing glasses,” The Verge.

360 cameras · DJI · GoPro · Insta360 · mirrorless cameras · smart glasses