Meta on Tuesday introduced a brand new line of AI glasses designed in-house, signaling a deeper push into the wearable know-how that’s turn into a brand new entrance within the synthetic intelligence race.
And the largest change customers will discover? A cheaper price ticket.
The new Meta Glasses will begin at $299, making them inexpensive than the most recent Ray-Ban fashions which start at $379. And that would assist get them within the arms of extra folks, which is essential for Meta because it faces stress to show its large AI investments will generate hit merchandise.
“You really want to be able to be in many places in the market, so reaching people isn’t just about even design and style, it’s also about the price point,” Andrew Bosworth, Meta’s chief know-how officer, stated throughout a press occasion on Monday.
The Meta-designed glasses signify a departure from the co-branded spectacles the social media large beforehand launched with EssilorLuxottica’s Ray-Ban and Oakley. (Meta nonetheless companions with EssilorLuxottica on sure features of the brand new glasses, just like the lenses, and continues to promote the Ray-Ban and Oakley fashions.)
Bosworth added that customers are prepared to pay a premium for Ray-Ban kinds due to their reputation, and that the brand new in-house frames are supposed to present customers with extra choices.
The glasses are available three kinds: a small body referred to as Adventurer, a bigger and barely rounder one referred to as Fury and an oval mannequin designed by Kylie Jenner referred to as Meta Glasses by Kylie.
The new glasses can play music, translate languages and reply questions on an individual’s environment by capturing pictures with the glasses’ cameras, like Meta’s Ray-Ban and Oakley glasses. The firm claims its new Muse Spark AI mannequin improves how the glasses can extract particulars from pictures and keep in mind private preferences.
Meta Glasses will launch with Muse Spark, whereas the corporate’s earlier glasses will get the brand new mannequin by means of a software program replace.
When NCS tried the glasses throughout a press occasion forward of launch, they had been capable of estimate the variety of energy in a bowl of strawberries, translate an indication from Arabic to English and supply close by museum suggestions. The glasses may additionally inform the container of faux cherries used as a prop throughout a demo weren’t actual.
Still, these situations are corresponding to what Meta’s present glasses can deal with and certain gained’t persuade people who find themselves skeptical of or bored with smart glasses. The Jenner-designed mannequin is probably the most distinctive; they’ve a customized chime sound that performs when a person places on the glasses, and the usual Meta AI voice could be changed by an AI-generated model of Jenner’s primarily based on her actual voice.
Tech firms are nonetheless struggling to show to customers that smart glasses and different new sorts of wearable devices, like pins that document and transcribe conversations, are extra helpful than smartphones, in line with Runar Bjorhovde, an analyst overlaying cellular units for market analysis agency Omdia. That could make it tough for some customers to justify the worth.
“The question is whether these wearables can do something completely unique or something completely different, using the camera (and) creating context in the world,” he informed NCS earlier this month. “And the question is, what do you actually do with that?”
But costs for smart glasses are anticipated to come back down over the following 4 years, probably making them extra widespread, in line with market analysis agency The International Data Corporation. The common promoting worth of smart glasses is anticipated to drop from $376 in 2026 to $229 by 2030.
Privacy considerations and extra competitors
But worth isn’t the one concern on the subject of smart glasses; the corporate has grappled with ongoing privateness considerations. NCS reported earlier this yr that some males have filmed movies of themselves flirting with ladies utilizing smart glasses and uploaded the clips to social media with out the ladies’s consent.
All Meta’s glasses have an LED mild indicating when the glasses are recording. Meta’s web site additionally says the digital camera gained’t perform except the LED mild is clear.
“It is a cat and mouse game with people who are bad actors,” Bosworth stated, at Monday’s press occasion. “We try to make sure that we’re doing everything we can generationally to continue to improve, making sure that light is the indicator that bystanders can rely on to understand what’s happening on the glasses.”
Smart glasses, particularly Meta’s, are gaining traction: The IDC experiences that shipments of smart glasses surged by 167% within the first quarter of 2026 in comparison with the identical interval in 2025. And Meta dominates the house with 69.2% of the market, the agency discovered.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated in an April earnings name that the variety of folks utilizing its glasses each day has tripled year-over-year.
But Meta will quickly face extra competitors. Google and Samsung are collaborating on a brand new pair of AI glasses launching later this yr with comparable performance. OpenAI is additionally creating a {hardware} product.
ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini are already considerably extra widespread than Meta’s AI assistant, in line with Pew Research, which experiences that 44% of American adults use ChatGPT, whereas 24% use Gemini and 14% use Meta AI.
“Google enters the smart glasses race with an advantage no rival can manufacture overnight: an ecosystem already embedded in billions of lives,” IDC analysts wrote in a June 15 report. “Gemini is already in people’s email, photos, search history, and calendars.”
Meta’s earlier {hardware} efforts, like co-branded smartphones, smart dwelling units and digital actuality headsets, have failed to achieve traction with customers. Now it hopes to make smart glasses as pervasive as smartphones, smartwatches and different tech devices. Doing so may give Meta’s AI assistant a critical increase within the race towards ChatGPT and Gemini, since customers primarily work together with the glasses by speaking to the digital helper.
And it’s attainable that glasses are simply the beginning.
“The design team is absolutely captivated by this question,” Bosworth stated of probably designing AI merchandise for individuals who don’t put on glasses. “What are the other ways that we can deliver this capability to people who don’t want to have glasses?”