Mark Zuckerberg unveils Meta’s newest AI-powered smart glasses

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shows off the new, AI-powered Meta Ray-Ban Display smart glasses during the company's Connect conference on September 17 in Menlo Park, California. (Credit: Nic Coury/AP via CNN Newsource)

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the stage on Wednesday to unveil the company’s next-generation artificial intelligence-powered wearable device: a pair of smart glasses with a tiny display inside the lens.

The Meta Ray-Bans Display glasses represent the company’s next step toward a future where we all spend less time looking down at a phone screen. Rather, we could interact with Meta’s AI technology — as well as our messages, photos and the rest of our online lives — via glasses not totally unlike regular prescription lenses or sunglasses.

The Displays and other new wearables are part of the company’s bid to make its AI technology a bigger part of users’ everyday lives as it competes with other big industry players to create the most advanced and widely used models.

“Glasses are the ideal form factor for personal super intelligence because they let you stay present in the moment while getting access to all of these AI capabilities to make you smarter, help you communicate better, improve your memory, improve your senses,” Zuckerberg said.

Zuckerberg announced the new products during the keynote at Meta’s annual Connect event — where it outlines new AI, virtual and augmented reality and wearable technologies — from its Menlo Park, California, headquarters on Wednesday. Meta also showed off the latest version of its more basic Ray-Ban smart glasses, the Gen 2 and new sport glasses, the Meta Oakley Vanguard; and new experiences on its Quest 3 virtual reality headsets, including games and a new entertainment app and partnership with Disney+ for Horizon, Meta’s immersive “metaverse” experience.

Smart glasses remain a relatively niche product, but consumer adoption is growing fast. Meta’s partner, Ray-Ban parent EssilorLuxottica, said in July that revenue from its Meta glasses more than tripled year-over-year. And the company is seeking to produce 10 million pairs of Meta glasses each year starting in 2026.

The Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses are key to reaching that goal, EssilorLuxottica’s Chief Wearables Officer Rocco Basilico said in an interview with CNN.

“You can wear the glasses and feel good in your favorite brands, but if you actually need, like, some super-powers, some immediate information, that could be delivered through audio or through the display,” Basilico said, calling the new display offering “the biggest launch that we have done so far.”

Zuckerberg said on Wednesday that the sales trajectory for Meta’s smart glasses are “similar to some of the most popular consumer electronics of all time.”

While Meta was early to making smart glasses that consumers actually want to buy, it faces growing competition from Google, Samsung, Snap and potentially Amazon, raising the stakes for the new technology it’s rolling out starting Wednesday.

Here’s more on the new display smart glasses and everything the company announced at Meta Connect:

Meta Ray-Ban Display

Meta has long described its Ray-Bans as smart glasses that can “see what you see and hear what you hear.” Now, with the Meta Ray-Bans Display, users will also have some visual feedback that makes it possible to interact with the device in new ways.

The Displays feature a tiny display screen on the inside right corner of the right lens. The display looks as though it’s projected several feet in front of the user’s surrounding environment.

That display makes it possible to do a variety of things one might previously have done on their phone screen: view and send messages, capture and review photos and videos, watch Instagram Reels and take video calls where users will see the person on the other end.

“We have been working on glasses for more than 10 years, and this is one of those special moments where we get to show you something that we poured a lot of our lives into,” Zuckerberg said, “and that I just think is different from anything that I’ve seen.”

There’s also a navigation feature that shows where a user is on a map in real-time, so they could walk somewhere without staring at a maps app on their phone. And live captioning and translation lets users see what a conversation partner is saying in real-time. (Captioned conversations will also save as a transcript in the Meta AI app — a feature journalists at least will find very useful!)

Users can also ask the Meta AI assistant questions and it will respond with information panels on the display, in addition to giving an audio answer.

Whereas users could interact with previous versions of Meta Ray-Bans using only voice commands, the Meta Ray-Ban Displays work with a “neural” wristband that lets users navigate the display using subtle hand gestures. Tapping your thumb and index finger, for example, acts as a select function to press play on music.

Only the wearer can see the display screen. That’s by design to protect the privacy of the user’s messages, photos and other content. But it could also lead to some awkward moments if people don’t realize Meta Ray-Ban Display users are actually reading incoming texts in the middle of a conversation.

However, users can turn the display screen off when they’re not using it — and use the spectacles just like regular glasses.

“When we’re designing the hardware and software, we focus on giving you access to very powerful tools when you want them, and then just having them fade into the background” when you’re not, Zuckerberg said.

Meta isn’t the first to try to make a device like this. Google launched an early version of glasses with a display in the lens called Google Glass in 2013, but flopped with consumers. But the technology to power smart glasses — like processors, batteries and cameras — has improved (and shrunk) significantly over the past decade. The Displays look and feel just slightly heavier and chunkier than non-techy glasses.

The Displays work for six hours on a single charge, with the case providing up to 30 hours of additional power. The wristband has 18 hours of battery life and is water-resistant.

The Meta Ray-Ban Displays will be available starting on September 30 for US$799, at limited brick-and-mortar retail stores in the United States, including some Verizon, Lens Crafter, Ray-Ban and Best Buy locations.

Ran-Ban Meta Gen 2

The Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2, priced at US$379, looks similar to predecessors but has updated colours, battery life and camera. The battery life has doubled to eight hours, and the charging case provides an additional 48 hours of power.

The glasses can now also capture higher-quality 3K video. In updates set for later this fall, they’ll be able to take slow-motion and hyperlapse videos, too.

Meta says a new, opt-in “conversation focus” feature will make it easier for Meta Ray-Ban wearers to hear someone during an in-person conversation, even in a loud area. The tool uses the glasses’ “open-ear speakers to amplify” the other person amid background noise.

An imperfect live demo at Connect served as a reminder that despite the advancements, this technology is still in its fairly early stages. The company attempted to show a chef using Meta AI on the Gen 2s to get audio directions to follow a recipe. When the assistant failed to generate an intelligible response, Zuckerberg blamed it on the Wi-Fi.

Similarly, in a demo of the Meta Ray-Ban Displays, Zuckerberg struggled to answer a video call from Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth because the button to accept the call didn’t show up on the display. “We’ll debug that later,” Bosworth said.

Meta Oakley Vanguard Sports Glasses

The new Meta Oakley Vanguard are smart glasses designed for sports and outdoor activities and cost US$499.

They pair with platforms Strava and Garmin to let users track their workouts. The Meta AI app will have a new “workouts” section to show activity details, photos and videos captured with the smart glasses, and an AI summary of each workout.

The Vanguard boasts bigger, louder speakers — so users can still hear their music on a windy bike ride, for example — and has the longest battery life of any Meta glasses, around nine hours. The Vanguard’s control buttons are on the bottom edge of the arm of the glasses, whereas other Meta Ray-Bans feature a top capture button, so users can still access them if they’re wearing a helmet.

The Vanguard glasses are also water- and dust-resistant. And the camera, which is centered on the bridge of the nose rather than on the side, has a wider field of view compared to Meta’s other glasses and can capture 3K video.

“I’ve taken them out surfing,” Zuckerberg said. “It’s fine, it’s good.”

CNN received a demo of the Vanguards paired with a Garmin watch. On a treadmill walk, Meta AI on the Vanguards could answer questions, for example, about current heart rate and the length of the exercise.