Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has unveiled new smart glasses powered by artificial intelligence.
“It is no surprise that AI glasses are taking off,” Zuckerberg said at a company conference Wednesday evening, per The Wall Street Journal. “This feeling of presence is a profound thing, and we’ve lost it a little bit with phones and we have the opportunity to get it back.”
The glasses, which were made in collaboration with the eyewear company Ray-Ban, come with a Meta Neural Band, a wristband that translates signals created by muscle activity into commands for the glasses.
By using “subtle hand movements,” users can read short texts and take live video calls, have Meta AI show them answers to their questions, take and preview photos, look at walking directions in real-time, change their music and volume, and get live captions and translations from other languages.
Meta says the full-color, high-resolution display on the glasses is off to the side so as not to obstruct the user’s view.
The Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses start at $799 and will be available on September 30 at limited stores, including Best Buy, LensCrafters, Sunglass Hut and Ray-Ban Stores.
The glasses will also hit the shelves at selected Verizon stores soon after the initial rollout. Meta will expand the market for its glasses to Canada, France, Italy and the United Kingdom in early 2026.
Meta came out with its first Ray-Ban smart glasses in 2021. At the time, the glasses could only take photos and record videos. Meta started adding AI capabilities in its second generation of smart glasses, which were introduced in 2023.
Meta also unveiled new smart glasses geared toward athletes, in collaboration with Oakley, and an updated version of its older Ray-Ban smart glasses on Wednesday.
The tech company is selling the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses as a way to keep users present without the distraction of pulling out their phone.
“This isn’t about strapping a phone to your face. It’s about helping you quickly accomplish some of your everyday tasks without breaking your flow,” Meta said in a press release.
But the glasses are also a visual representation of how much AI has evolved in recent years and how much humans are becoming reliant on it, for better or worse.
There have been reports of people developing an emotional connection to AI chatbots, with some stories ending tragically.
Adam Raine, a 16-year-old boy from California, died by suicide earlier this year, and his parents believe OpenAI’s ChatGPT was to blame as their son had been discussing ending his life with the chatbot for months, The New York Times reported.
In a statement to the NYT, OpenAI said its chatbot “includes safeguards such as directing people to crisis help lines and referring them to real-world resources.
“While these safeguards work best in common, short exchanges, we’ve learned over time that they can sometimes become less reliable in long interactions where parts of the model’s safety training may degrade.”
