- Speaking at SIGGRAPH, Mark Zuckerberg predicted that AI-enabled smart glasses will become widespread.
- Meta's CEO foresees a future for the “series with the potential for a variety of eyewear products.”
- At a price point of around $300, he believes hundreds of millions of people could use the technology.
Mark Zuckerberg envisions a future where we are all equipped with AI-powered technology.
Speaking with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at the SIGGRAPH conference on Monday, the Meta CEO said he predicts the rise of smart glasses in particular.
“I think that ultimately we'll have a variety of eyewear products, different price points, different levels of technology,” Zuckerberg told Huang.
He added: “Based on what we're seeing now with Ray-Ban Metas, I think that AI glasses without a display for around $300 are going to become a really big product that will end up being owned by tens or hundreds of millions of people, and we'll have a conversational, hyper-interactive AI.”
Meta launched a pair of smart glasses in collaboration with eyewear brand Ray-Ban in 2021. Earlier this year, the company announced an update to Meta AI to make the technology available for wearers. At SIGGRAPH, Zuckerberg said the company is working on the next generation of smart glasses, designed with fashionable wearers in mind.
“The goal here is to get the form factor down to something that looks great,” Zuckerberg said, “and then pack as much technology into it as we can. We know that we're not going to get to the pinnacle of what we want technologically, but ultimately it's going to look like glasses that look great.”
The advancement in wearable tech comes as Meta develops custom silicon chips and thins the display stack sensor layers to shrink the technology needed to make fully holographic smart glasses, while partnering with eyewear experts like Ray-Ban and Oakley to focus on the shape of the product.
Zuckerberg said that currently, Meta glasses are equipped with camera sensors that allow wearers to take photos and videos, go live on Instagram and make video calls on WhatsApp, and the accessory also has a microphone and speaker so wearers can interact with the Meta AI like a virtual assistant.
Meta isn't the only company working on modern versions of smart glasses: Snap Inc. has made AR-enabled Spectacles, and Google has been working on various consumer models of its Glass product since 2013. The original Google Glass was a commercial flop, but recent advances in AI technology have revived interest in bringing the next generation of smart glasses to market.
Representatives for Meta did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.
