The company insists it is still committed to launching the smart glasses as a consumer product, but will stop producing Glass in its present form. Instead it will focus on "future versions of Glass" with work carried out by a different division to before. The Explorer programme, which gave software developers the chance to buy Glass for $1,500 (£990) will close.
The programme was launched in the United States in 2013. It was then opened up to anyone and was launched in the UK last summer. It had been expected that it would be followed reasonably quickly by a full consumer launch.
From next week, the search firm will stop taking orders for the product but it says it will continue to support companies that are using Glass. The Glass team will also move out of the Google X division which engages in "blue sky" research, and become a separate undertaking, under its current manager Ivy Ross.