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Take super intelligence seriously. This is going to be the most important technology in our lifetimes. AI should serve people, not just be something that sits in a data center automating large parts of society. So we design our glasses to be able to empower people with new capabilities as soon as they become possible.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. They're at Metaconnect last night unveiling a host of new AIPOWD wearables and features for its metaverse platform, including glasses. Mark reaction, Well, we're up about a percentage point on the day. We're about to hear from Chris Cox in a moment, but first I want to bring in Bloomberg's Riley Griffin, and the market reaction is Bank of America saying, look, this is still an
eight hundred dollars ar glasses still early for adoption. But then you've got cities saying these must have and a clear extension of the superintelligence by Riley.
How do you assess it, Caroline? It's a great question, and I'm eager to hear from Chris Cox about how he's used the market reaction as well. This is a first of its kind glass for Meta. This is an AI powered display on the glasses that should bring a lot of the functionality of your phone. But importantly it
still requires the phone itself and a neural wristband. So whether than not this becomes a mass consumer product we'll still have to see, but it as an innovation is certainly a big unveiling by the company.
Let's get to the company, Blue Mos Riley Griffin, thank you so much for that analysis. We've got to get out to metas headquarters in Menlo Park now where our own ed Ludlow is standing by.
Yeah, thanks Cara. A year ago today almost I was sat here having spent six hours with the engineering team that we're working on a Ryan a fully ormented glasses that was being dog fooded internally, right, this was about testing. Fast forward to today and we have a halfway the Meta ray band display smart glasses with a display in the lens, and the reaction has been this is a consumer technology innovation worth talking about. So delighted to do
so with Chris Cox, Messa's chief product officer. I think that context is really important, right, the evolution from oryan to this halfway point. But my question to start is who is this targeted at, right? You have generations of prior generation meta ray band wearers or is this a new entry people starting from scratch.
I think it'll probably be some combination of both. So, just because we're talking about it here, these are the meta ray ban displays. You can see. We've worked with ray Band to get them into the form factor that people are comfortable wearing. This is the most worn design for a pair of sunglasses or glasses. And so we're starting with something we didn't want to put something onto the market that was clunky. We're starting with something that's really,
really nice. And I also just mention there's a wave guide in here, okay, which a wave guide being basically it's light that's being projected through a series of mirrors into a small display that appears just below your right eye. And you can actually change where that is.
It's eight hundred dollars, right, that's right. But the emphasis over and over again is like this is a consumer product. Yes, it's not for engineers, that's right. What is the one killer feature in it then that you think is going to appeal messaging? Just messaging, Well, that's how he uses it.
Yeah, Yeah, messaging, i'd say is going to be the most useful. To start, it comes with this wristband, which is an EMG wristband. You wear it around your wrist. It detects very subtle muscular and nervous system sort of activity, so that you can just use a tiny gesture with your fingertips to control Essentially a cursor controls the display.
So we've worked to get into something that means that you can use a display in glasses without needing to wave your hands around in the world or care around and mouse or something.
And this is why evolution is important. The neural band is directly from the Iran project that I remember experimenting with the technology one year ago.
So the R and D here is you have the north Star, which you've seen, which is Oriyan like you said, and then you're also working forwards from what we know people are comfortable wearing, which is the ray bands. I think we're going to see early adopters pick it up to your question, Yes, I think we're going to see enthusiasts like you were mentioning to me before. You wear the meta ray bands a fair amount.
App but I wear them when I'm driving well, that's a thing because the display in the ray band display right, obviously if you're driving, not the best use kits not intended for driving. Last night, you did live demos. Some of them didn't go very well, but you're getting a lot of credit for doing live demos, just very simply and for transparency. What did go wrong in those demos?
I haven't looked into them. I believe it was the Wi Fi. We're trying to have these events where we're not canning them. We know people don't want something that's canned, so we're airing on the side of trying to do it live.
I've got a question from our audience. Yeah, ray band display. Will it be available for prescription lensers? Yes? And why was that important? This is a question that's come up a lot with raybans.
Well, just we know around one to two billion people on Earthware glasses. One of them are wearing them as sunglasses, and then a whole bunch of folks are wearing them with prescriptions.
Chris, where are these going to be manufactured? I'm not one hundred percent sure, your chief product officer, and you don't know.
Yeah, I think it's in a handful of places. The parts are assembled in a bunch of different places.
Not China, or is there a sensitivity around supply chain hardware in China.
I believe there's some work being done in China, but I'm not one hundred percent sure.
What I'm always trying to understand with Meta is where the company stands today. At times and presently, I think about the family of apps. You ran Facebook, Those people that are religious users of Facebook or WhatsApp, what is their relationship to this new generation of hardware.
So you'll be able to use WhatsApp on the device. We're trying to make sure that we're starting with communication, which is where the company comes from, making sure those products work well on the device. You're also able to view Instagram reels, which we know people love. We're trying to just get a handful of first party experiences right, and then eventually we'll be able to open that up.
Mark was talking about this as the vehicle for super intelligence. But you also have a background in software, So this is the interface, This is how I interact with it. But what other AI features can we expect to come through this mechanism and the family of apps as well.
We mentioned yesterday Translation Live translation, yes, including the ability to caption somebody or speaking to in a different language. We also mentioned the ability to focus a conversation. We're calling it conversation focus. So if you're in a crowded room, if you're at a party, if you're at a concert, you're able to focus in on the person who's speaking
to you and get a clearer audio of that. And so all of those things involve applications of AI to bring these things to life in ways that are practical.
I got a lot of questions from Meta users and the audience about what the developer community needs to know, but also your role in AI at Meta, what is it that you are focused on right now? Because we've reported a lot on the team changes the superintelligence team. From a product perspective, I think people really want to understand, like what is your focus and why are you going to bring more functionality to that.
Well, so there's the wearables, but there's also creative tools. So the ways that people are creating video, creating content making that's really really easy. AI is going to make it a lot easier for folks to do that. And a huge part of what Facebook and Instagram are is just you know, viewing the content that we create for each other. So that's where we're expecting to lend a lot of the newest technology.
Okay, so September thirtieth, it's very close and you will soon be able to if you wish to Caro get meta ray band displays. But the market one percent gain, I think you said. The reaction is that this is a genuine innovation in consumer technology, and so it'll be interesting to see out the gate who goes for it. Back to you in New York.
Fascinating conversation with Chris Cops. We appreciated ed