Meta and Ray-Ban launched a new generation of their smart glasses on Wednesday, which have Meta’s generative AI assistant built into them. The assistant can be activated by saying “Hey Meta” and offers users assistance with any questions they might have or in controlling the features.

The glasses come with a 12 MP camera capable of taking high-res photos and recording 1080p videos. However, the built-in generative assistant cannot interpret what you’re looking at. It can only answer general questions similar to those posed to Meta AI on WhatsApp, Messenger, or Instagram.

But that is going to change with a software update in early 2024, according to Mark Zuckerberg. In a recent interview, the Meta CEO stated that the glasses are set to get a software update for multimodality, “You’re going to be able to ask the AI, hey, what is it that I’m looking at? Like, what type of plant is that? Like, where am I? How expensive is this thing?”

He further stated that he’s not sure about what the “key use cases” would look like or “how people are going to use” the new tech but “smart glasses are very powerful for AI” as unlike a phone, “glasses as a form factor can see what you see and hear what you hear from your perspective.”

“So if you want to build an AI assistant that really has access to all of the inputs that you have as a person, glasses are probably the way that you want to build that,” expressed Mark in the interview.

He also explained that when they began developing this new generation of smart glasses, their focus was on improving upon the first generation by enhancing the photo and audio quality, refining the form factor, and making it lighter. The goal was to present a much more polished version of the initial product, supplemented with new features such as live streaming.

But while developing the product, seeing the advancements in generative AI space, they realized that they could put a generative AI assistant into it, and “you could have these glasses that are kind of stylish Ray-Ban glasses, and you could be talking to AI all throughout the day about different questions you have.”

They are available for pre-order now on the websites of Meta and RayBan, starting at USD 299, with retail store availability set to begin on October 17.

Featured image via Reuters.Â