Credit: Mark Zuckerberg via Facebook
During Meta’s second-quarter earnings call, CEO Zuckerberg made the bold prediction that smart glasses will become as essential as prescription eyewear for those with vision problems.
The billionaire tech executive drew a direct comparison between corrective lenses and AI glasses, arguing that both will be necessary tools for navigating the world effectively.
Zuckerberg’s enthusiasm for smart glasses stems from his belief that they represent the perfect form factor for AI interaction.
Unlike smartphones or other devices that require users to actively engage with them, AI glasses can provide continuous, ambient intelligence throughout the day.
“I continue to think that glasses are basically going to be the ideal form factor for AI, because you can let an AI see what you see throughout the day, hear what you hear, [and] talk to you,” he said during the earnings call, Tech Crunch reports.
The Meta CEO envisions a future where AI glasses can observe users’ surroundings, generate user interfaces in real-time, provide relevant information, and offer assistance in a multimodal way that seamlessly blends with daily activities.
Zuckerberg’s confidence in smart glasses comes despite Meta’s Reality Labs division being a significant financial drain on the company.
The division reported an operating loss of $4.53 billion in the second quarter alone and has lost nearly $70 billion since 2020. However, Zuckerberg frames this massive investment as necessary research for the future of consumer computing.
“This is kind of what we’ve been maxing out with Reality Labs over the last 5 to 10 years, basically doing the research on all of these different things,” he said, justifying the costs as preparation for what he sees as an inevitable technological shift.
While Zuckerberg champions glasses as the future of AI interaction, the wearable AI market remains in its early stages.
Other companies have experimented with different form factors, including AI pins like Humane’s failed device and AI pendants from startups like Limitless and Friend.
OpenAI has also entered the hardware space, acquiring former Apple executive Jony Ive’s startup in a $6.5 billion deal to develop new consumer AI devices, Yahoo reports.
But Meta’s Ray-Ban Meta glasses, priced at $299, have seen remarkable growth, with revenue more than tripling year-over-year according to eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica‘s recent earnings report.
The success has prompted Meta to expand its smart glasses lineup, recently introducing Oakley Meta glasses designed for athletes and active users.
The current generation of Meta’s smart glasses allows users to listen to music, capture photos and videos, and interact with Meta AI, including asking questions about what they’re seeing.
However, these glasses lack displays, which Zuckerberg sees as the next crucial development.
Adding displays to smart glasses will ‘unlock a lot of value,’ he claims.
Whether through wide holographic field-of-view displays like those demonstrated in Meta’s Orion AR glasses prototype, or smaller displays suitable for everyday eyewear, the addition of visual elements will transform how users interact with AI.
Meta is reportedly preparing to launch its first smart glasses with a display later this year.
Leaked information suggests the device, codenamed ‘Celeste,’ will feature a heads-up display in the right eye, showing time, weather, notifications, navigation directions, and Meta AI responses, per Upload VR.
Priced above $1,000, these glasses will reportedly include Meta’s neural wristband for gesture controls.
Beyond AI interaction, Zuckerberg sees smart glasses as the key to realizing his long-term vision of the metaverse.
“The other thing that’s awesome about glasses is, they are going to be the ideal way to blend the physical and digital worlds together,” he explained.
“So the whole metaverse vision, I think, is going to end up being extremely important, too, and AI is going to accelerate that, too.”
Meta’s roadmap for smart glasses extends well into the future.
The company plans to release full-fledged AR glasses by 2027, though these may be different from the revolutionary Orion prototype shown at Meta Connect 2024.
Orion relies on silicon carbide lenses that are currently too expensive to manufacture at scale, with each unit potentially costing over $10,000.
Instead, Meta is developing a separate AR glasses product codenamed ‘Artemis’ that will use conventional glass lenses, similar to existing AR devices from companies like Snap and Magic Leap, though likely with a more limited field of view than Orion.
“I personally think that – I wear contact lenses, I feel like if I didn’t have my vision corrected, I’d be sort of at a cognitive disadvantage going through the world,” Zuckerberg explained to investors.
“And I think in the future, if you don’t have glasses that have AI or some way to interact with AI, I think you’re kind of similarly probably be at a pretty significant cognitive disadvantage compared to other people who you’re working with, or competing against.”
