Meta
- Mark Zuckerberg envisions Meta’s AI glasses as stylish, functional wearables, not mere gadgets.
- Meta’s new AI glasses, starting at $299, aim to blend fashion with advanced wearable technology.
- Zuckerberg said his collaboration with EssilorLuxottica influenced his taste in fashion.
Mark Zuckerberg wants Meta’s latest AI glasses to be more than a gadget.
For the Meta CEO, the challenge isn’t cramming more AI into a pair of frames — it’s making glasses people actually want to wear.
During an interview with Feed Me creator Emily Sundberg, Zuckerberg sounded less like a Silicon Valley executive and more like a fashion designer.
“I think there’s going to be a spectrum both of styles and different amounts of functionality and different price points,” Zuckerberg said. “But the challenge is that each one you need to hit the sweet spot of making it good-looking and comfortable to wear and delivering on the functionality.”
“I’m pretty involved in everything we build,” Zuckerberg added.
On Tuesday, Meta unveiled a new line of smart glasses starting at $299, cheaper than the company’s entry-level Ray-Ban glasses, as it pushes harder into wearable technology. The new glasses were developed with eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica but don’t carry Ray-Ban or Oakley branding.
Zuckerberg said working on smart glasses has exposed him to a different set of priorities than the software world. Through Meta’s partnership with EssilorLuxottica, he said he learned about “how they build their brands, how they do their design, what they feel is important.”
The Meta CEO developed some fashion interests of his own and evolved from what he said used to be his favorite item back in the aughts: Adidas slides.
Justine Hunt/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
“The future is going to be these different wearable platforms that I think merge with fashion,” Zuckerberg said.
For Zuckerberg, the future of AI hardware may need to look more like runway fashion than gaming accessories, and that mindset is increasingly shaping Meta’s wearable ambitions as rivals, including Google and Snap, race into AI-powered eyewear. Snap’s new AI glasses, for example, immediately received online rebuff for being expensive and clunky after launching earlier in June.
“And I think the key for any one of these,” Zuckerberg added, “Whether it’s on your wrist or on your face or anything else, it needs to be something that you’re proud to wear and it needs to be comfortable.”
