Reflecting the sentiment shared in this morning’s “Superintelligence,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has expanded his bullish idea that glasses will become the main way to interact with AI in the coming years. During Meta’s second quarter revenue calls, social networking executives told investors they believe people without AI glasses will be at a disadvantage in the future.
“We continue to think that glasses will essentially be the ideal form factor for AI, because you can see what you see all day long and hear what you hear. Adding a display to these glasses will unlock more value whether it’s a wider holographic field of vision, like Meta’s next-generation Orion AR glasses, or a small display that could potentially be shipped to everyday AI eyewear.
“In the future, if you don’t have glasses that have AI or how to interact with AI, you probably have a pretty important cognitive disadvantage compared to others,” Zuckerberg added.
Meta has focused on building smart glasses, such as Ray-Ban Meta Meta Grass and, more recently, Oakley Meta Grass. Glasses allow users to listen to music, take photos and videos, and ask meta AI questions. According to glasses giant Essilorluxottica, these wearables were a surprising hit for the company as revenues from Ray-Banmeta sales more than three times the previous year.
But Zuckerberg believes there is more to do on display.
“This is… what we’ve made the most out of reality labs over the last five to ten years. We’re basically doing research into all these different things,” he said.
As the Reality Labs division is the company’s money pit, it’s no surprise that executives want to justify their costs to investors by betting on the future of AI and consumer computing in general. Meta, for example, said Reality Labs’ operating loss in the second quarter was $4.53 billion. Since 2020, the unit has lost nearly $70 billion.
However, the future of consumer AI may or may not be in the form of glasses. This spring, Openai acquired the startup of former Apple executive Jony Ive in a $6.5 billion deal to build a new consumer device for interaction with AI. Already, other startups have dabbled in this field, including form factors like AI pins such as Humane’s Flop and pendants like endless friends and friends.
Glasses seem to make the most sense, as many people already wear them for now, and they are more socially acceptable. But the world didn’t know that they needed a smartphone either until someone dreamed of them. The next AI device may be something we still can’t even imagine.
Still, Zuckerberg supports the idea that glasses will become that.
“The great thing about glasses is that they’re an ideal way to blend the physical and digital worlds,” he said. “So I think the whole metaverse vision is going to be very important in the end. AI will accelerate that.”
