Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, unveiled its first functional prototype of augmented-reality glasses named Orion during its annual Connect conference held at its headquarters in California on Wednesday. Alongside this announcement, the company introduced upgrades to its existing virtual reality and artificial intelligence products.
“This technology merges the real world with holographic overlays,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg declared as he dramatically revealed the chunky black glasses from a metal case that had been brought to him on stage.
The Orion glasses are crafted from magnesium alloy and equipped with custom silicon developed by Meta. Users will be able to engage with the device through hand gestures, voice commands, and a wrist-based neural interface.
Describing Orion as a “developer kit,” Zuckerberg expressed that Meta intends to refine the design to make it more compact, stylish, and affordable for everyday consumers in the future. Following the presentation, Meta’s stock saw a nearly 2% increase in value on Wednesday afternoon.
In addition, Meta introduced several software improvements to enhance the AI assistant linked to the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. Users will soon be able to scan QR codes and stream music from Spotify utilizing voice prompts. The company also plans to incorporate video features and real-time language translation capabilities between English and languages such as French, Italian, or Spanish by the end of this year, with Zuckerberg demonstrating the translation in action.
Zuckerberg opened the Connect event by elaborating on Meta’s commitment to artificial intelligence, revealing new product offerings for its ChatGPT-like AI chatbot and plans to seamlessly integrate personalized images from the bot into users’ feeds on Facebook and Instagram.
Additionally, Meta launched an entry-level addition to its Quest mixed-reality headset series, named the Quest 3S. Among the AI enhancements introduced was a voice upgrade for the digital assistant known as Meta AI. Users will now be able to interact with it using voice commands, and even select celebrity voices like Judi Dench and John Cena for a unique interaction experience.
“I believe that interacting with AI through voice will feel much more natural than using text,” Zuckerberg noted.
The company reported more than 400 million people currently use Meta AI each month, with 185 million returning weekly.
Staying true to its commitment to making AI models available for public use, Meta released three new versions of its Llama 3 models. Two of these models are multimodal, capable of processing both images and text, while a third model operates solely on text and runs entirely on a user’s device, offering enhanced privacy.
The unveiling of the augmented-reality glasses has been a long-awaited endeavor for Zuckerberg, who has positioned AR technology as a centerpiece in Meta’s strategy since shifting the company’s focus toward building immersive “metaverse” experiences in 2021. However, Meta has faced various technical obstacles with its AR initiatives, leading the head of the company’s metaverse division to acknowledge last year that a market-ready product was still “a few years away.”
Meta has made significant investments—amounting to tens of billions of dollars—into artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and metaverse technologies, raising its capital expenditure forecast for 2024 to a staggering $37 billion to $40 billion. Recent reports indicate that the Reality Labs division has incurred losses of $8.3 billion in the first half of this year, following a loss of $16 billion the previous year.
Leveraging the buzz surrounding emerging generative AI, Meta excitingly announced at last year’s Connect conference the addition of an AI-powered digital assistant to the Ray-Ban glasses, transforming them into a leading AI wearable in the market. While specific sales figures for the smart glasses have not been released, EssilorLuxottica, the parent company of Ray-Ban, reported this summer that sales of the new generation exceeded those of the previous model in just a few months.
Meta recently extended its partnership with EssilorLuxottica and is considering a potential investment in the eyewear company, leading to speculation that future AR glasses could also carry the Ray-Ban brand. Looking ahead, Meta’s development plans for smart glasses include a next-generation version with a viewfinder designed to display basic text and images through the lenses.
Throughout this year, Meta has been rolling out software updates that enhance the AI assistant’s functionalities on the current glasses, including an April update that allowed the assistant to recognize and discuss objects observed by the wearer.
Set for release on October 15, the Quest 3S headset will be available in two storage sizes, priced at $299.99 for the smaller option and $399.99 for the larger. With this launch, the company will discontinue the older Quest 2 and high-end Quest Pro models, as well as reduce the price of the more powerful Quest 3 from $649.99 to $499.99.
