Meta to Showcase AI-Powered Smart Glasses at Connect as Zuckerberg Pushes 'Personal Superintelligence'

Meta is expected to unveil new artificial intelligence-powered smart glasses at its Connect developer conference Wednesday, advancing CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s pitch that wearable devices will become a primary interface for human-computer interaction. Zuckerberg will deliver the keynote at 8 p.m. Eastern.

Analysts say the devices likely to be shown are consumer-focused smart glasses rather than the holographic augmented-reality headset prototype dubbed Orion, which Zuckerberg called “the most advanced glasses the world has ever seen” when it was teased last year. Those more immersive AR devices are still years from market availability, while the new models are expected to act as an experimental platform that brings limited visual information and AI features into everyday use.

Industry researchers expect the glasses to include a small display and be controlled by a wristband worn by the user. Forrester Research director Mike Proulx said the Connect event is likely to be “virtually dominated by AI, specifically AI glasses and superintelligence,” and that while Meta holds a head start, competitors are readying their own entries. Forrester analyst Thomas Husson said the devices should enable basic tasks such as showing time and weather, delivering notifications, framing and previewing photos, generating captions and translating speech, and displaying responses from Meta’s AI.

Meta is also expected to detail updates to its Ray‑Ban Meta smart glasses, which Husson said will likely feature enhanced AI capabilities to interpret a user’s surroundings and context. The Menlo Park, California-based company has not disclosed sales figures for the Ray‑Ban glasses but said they have been more popular than expected, a performance partly attributed to social media creators.

The anticipated announcements come as Meta shifts emphasis from its earlier metaverse investments to large-scale work on artificial intelligence. In July, Zuckerberg published a note outlining his vision for what he called “personal superintelligence,” which he said could help “accelerate our pace of progress.” He did not provide technical details about how such superintelligence would be achieved. The abstract concept is often equated by rivals with artificial general intelligence, or AGI, which denotes systems with broad, human-like problem-solving capability.

Meta has been increasing investments in AI research and recruiting top talent with significant compensation packages, reflecting an industry-wide rush to advance capabilities and secure market position. Those moves have coincided with product-level integration of AI across Meta’s offerings, including its standalone Meta AI app and the incorporation of AI features into messaging and social platforms such as WhatsApp and Instagram.

Husson described the current smart-glasses initiatives as an attempt to move the technology beyond an early-adopter niche. “For more than a decade, Zuckerberg’s long-term vision with Oculus and the metaverse has been that glasses and headsets will blur the lines between physical and digital worlds,” he said. “After many false starts, the momentum to move beyond an early adopter niche is now.”

Meta’s Connect presentation will offer a first public view of how the company envisions wearable AI fitting into daily life and how it plans to connect hardware, social apps and AI services. The product demonstrations and software updates shown at the conference will provide clues about the timeline for consumer availability and how Meta intends to compete with other technology firms exploring AI-enabled eyewear.

Zuckerberg’s keynote, scheduled for Wednesday evening, is expected to frame those developments within Meta’s broader AI strategy and outline next steps for integrating AI into its consumer ecosystem.