The Meta Connect conference in Silicon Valley was a window into Mark Zuckerberg’s dual obsessions: AI and AR. He’s betting big on both, though the payoff remains uncertain.
On the AI front, generative models have improved ad targeting across Meta’s platforms. Beyond that, it’s unclear how Meta will turn this expensive technology into new user experiences.
In AR, Meta has already burned through billions with little to show. Its internet-connected specs have been a modest success, but will most people really wear computers on their faces?
I spoke with Business Insider’s Pranav Dixit, who was all over Connect this week. Here are his takeaways, which I edited for length and clarity. :
A lot was leaked before the event, so what was truly new?
Meta gave its metaverse an AI-powered refresh. In the middle of a glasses-heavy keynote, the company announced a feature that lets people build full 3D worlds for Quest with nothing more than text prompts. It’s a genuinely neat use case for AI, even if Horizon Worlds still doesn’t seem like a place most people actually want to hang out.
What was the biggest surprise from the event? Anything that blew you away, or disappointed you?
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The neural wristband used to control the new glasses looked amazing! To those who don’t know, it’s the same band Meta showed off last year with prototypes of its Orion augmented reality glasses. Orion won’t be available to buy for the foreseeable future (if ever), but the band itself is real, and is shipping with the new glasses in a few weeks. Watching Zuckerberg tap out words with subtle finger movements onstage was kind of wild, and we know that Meta’s already working on future versions where the band can sort of intuit what you want to type by just thinking about how you want to move your fingers, which, sort of creepy, yes, but also… cool?
How was Zuck this time?
Well, for starters, he wasn’t in one of those shirts with Latin slogans on it. He came across as upbeat and a little dorky, trying to sell you the future with a straight face. If anything, he felt more pragmatic this time, pitching a straight-up message: We got these new glasses, they’re cool, you can actually buy them now.
Some of the live demos though, were flops. Two failed onstage, with Zuck blaming the venue’s WiFi. I’ve since heard they’re scrambling behind the scenes to figure out what actually went wrong.
The bigger picture is that Meta still makes almost all its money from people scrolling Reels on Instagram and clicking on ads on Facebook, both ecosystems controlled by Apple and Google. What Zuck wants is the next platform, one that he owns outright. That’s what these glasses represent. It’s classic Zuckerberg: naked ambition on full display. The open question is whether anyone outside Menlo Park actually wants to wear computers on their face, especially ones stamped with the Meta logo.
Anything Zuck said that was really surprising?
What was almost more surprising was what he didn’t say. Zuckerberg talked up the glasses as the “ideal form factor for personal superintelligence,” but he never explained what that actually means. The new Meta Superintelligence Labs team only came together this summer after Zuckerberg essentially hit a big reset button on Meta’s AI efforts. He poached Alexandr Wang from Scale AI, handed out nine-figure offers to lure researchers from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and other labs, and pledged tens of billions for AI infrastructure.
And yet on stage, we got no real peek into what that all-star team is building, or how any of it might translate into the kind of AI features that would make these glasses indispensable. Maybe it’s still too early for that. But if you’re trying to will a brand-new platform into existence on the back of these capabilities, Connect felt like the perfect time to show a glimpse. I guess we’ll have to wait until next year.
Given what you saw and heard this week, how has your outlook changed for Meta’s future?
Meta deserves credit for actually shipping these glasses at a consumer-friendly price. At $800, the new Ray-Bans are priced like a premium accessory, and I think they’ll land well with early adopters. We’re also going to see similar glasses from Google and maybe Apple down the line, so it feels like Meta is getting in at the right time.
That said, I don’t think hardware is the full story. What will make or break these devices are the AI-powered use cases that justify strapping a computer to your face. And among Meta, Google, and Apple, the only one that’s miles ahead in AI right now is Google. Unless Meta can pull substantially ahead on the quality of its own AI technology, it’s hard to imagine these glasses breaking out beyond the tech-obsessed crowd. Right now I’m looking at these glasses like an appetizer. The real meal is being cooked up by Meta’s new superintelligence team. We’ll see if they deliver.
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