It's right there in the name: “Insta360†makes 360-degree cameras, ones that film every angle simultaneously so you can shoot first and frame later. It didn't invent the idea, but Insta360 has become so synonymous with 360 cameras that it dominates the category with 73 percent of worldwide marketshare. It's preparing to ship so many cameras, it just spent $298 million — more than GoPro's entire valuation — on memory chips alone.
But as Insta360 sells its 10 millionth camera and opens its first flagship US store in New York City's Times Square, it's thinking bigger than two hemispherical lenses on a stick. It's looking to challenge Canon, Sony, Nikon, and Fujifilm by becoming a “top imaging camera company†or “even a tech company,†cofounder Max Richter tells me — and it's experimentally building its own mirrorless cameras and smart glasses to get there.
Insta360, also known as Shadow Stone or Arashi Vision in its native China, isn't targeting Meta's AI glasses or DSLR-wielding professional photographers just yet. Nor is it trying to replace the smartphone camera in your pocket.
“We don't try to fight against the rise of the smartphone in photography and content creation,†says Richter. “We see that there's an opportunity between smartphone users and professional cameras — a growing trend that people want to express themselves,†he adds.
He tells me that if Insta360 were to sell a pair of smart glasses, “we wouldn't necessarily compete with companies on smart intelligent features.†It'd be about helping people conveniently capture high-quality images, not about an AI assistant on your face. And while that doesn't sidestep the “pervert glasses†problem, I wonder if there's room for Insta360 to go about it differently, with headgear that's obviously a camera instead of covertly spying.
Though Insta360's smart glasses ambitions haven't been widely reported — I could only find one brief mention — founder JK Liu previously confirmed that two mirrorless cameras are already in development. One will have a shape that “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 tells The Verge.
If Insta360 does expand into those camera categories, they'll just be the tip of the spear. The company has already been pushing into many other categories dominated by its Chinese rival DJI, including DJI-challenging drones, gimbals and gimbaled baby steadycams, and modular action cameras.
While Insta360 might be the 360-camera market leader with 73 percent share, it's a distant number 2 in other categories that DJI serves. IDC estimates that Insta360 has 20 percent of the worldwide handheld smart camera market compared to DJI's 73 percent overall. Still, Insta360 is making significant headway: In Q2 2026, it had 43 percent of the detachable action camera market, 17 percent of non-detachable GoPro style action cameras, and its brand-new Luna Ultra already has 6 percent marketshare in gimbaled cameras.
GoPro itself, meanwhile, is a distant number 3 in IDC data, with just 3 percent of the smart camera market in Q2 2026, after shipments fell by half to just 200,000 cameras in the quarter.
It's not unthinkable that Insta360 could help challenge traditional cameras. The traditional market leader, 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.
Insta360's founders have explained that their grand vision is to become the robot cameraman for the world — not necessarily an actual humanoid robot, but rather an expectation that these devices can do more and more of the capture and motion and editing themselves, automatically understanding your intent using built-in AI tech.
The company's latest Insta360 X6 is another small step in this direction: It comes with an onboard AI model and enough processing to automatically create a highlight reel from your footage while the camera is plugged in and charging, and it's got a 2.0 version of a previous “InstaFrame†feature that can track and frame the person you select and automatically produce a video.
Insta360's also launching a new feature for the X6 that can create 3D Gaussian splats with one tap in the company's smartphone app, for free. It takes an hour or two for cloud servers to process the video, and users will only get four free splats per month, says Insta360 spokesperson Caroline Chen, but early results look neat.
It's not at all clear whether the United States will embrace Insta360 the way Insta360 has embraced the US. While Apple, Best Buy, and Costco all stock the company's products, that could change if the US government decides to enact a foreign camera ban — or if it simply decides that Insta360 is a drone company, like DJI, and pushes back on its cameras, too.
Insta360 already distanced itself from its drone brand Antigravity in the lead-up to the US drone ban, which will theoretically prevent Antigravity from shipping any future drones into the United States. Its first drone beat the ban by weeks.
As for Insta360, “We remain on the ground,†Richter tells me. “When it comes to drones, it's not something that Insta360 is working on,†he says, suggesting I speak to Antigravity CEO Michael Shabun instead.
Richter says he's “quite confident†that he can continue to bring cameras to people all around the world, and that Insta360 will fully comply with any local laws, but admits “there are certain things that are out of our control.â€
I ask: Would Insta360 consider hedging against future risk by manufacturing some products in the US? If the company was required to, perhaps — but there's no current plan to do so. “We would potentially look into it, but it's not in our plan or roadmap at this moment.†He says the US is a key market, and Insta360 plans to be there for the long haul.
