In short
What AI wearables (especially Meta’s Ray-Ban Meta Optics) should look like and how “personal superintelligence” should behave—always-on, context-aware, and proactive—without distracting users from the real world.
Guest backgrounds
Alex Himel is VP of wearables at Meta, leading Meta’s glasses effort. (The transcript also references other ServiceNow and enterprise AI leaders from a separate segment, but the main guest is Himel.)
Key claims
Glasses should win because they’re already comfortable and stylish, provide value even when AI is off, and are worn by most people. AI should feel like an assistant that helps you do what you’re already doing—recording and acting only when you explicitly allow it. “Personal superintelligence” is about empowering the best version of you while staying present. Meta expects wearables to be a leading form factor for agentic AI.
Notable examples
Running with automatic video stitching and stats; ordering missing items (Ziploc bags, Nutella); meeting notes and action-item follow-ups; auto capture at parties/sunsets via explicit “start live capture”; watching sports via a virtual display (Orion demo); identifying what you’re looking at (e.g., landmarks/plants).
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOIntroduction to Alex Himel
0:47 to 1:15
Introduction of Alex Himel, head of wearables at Meta, and the focus on AI devices.
“To get AI to work for you, you don't need more tokens.”
Introduction to Alex Himel
1:19 to 1:42
Introduction of Alex Himel, head of wearables at Meta, and the focus on AI devices.
“We're going to talk about what the future of AI device or AI devices looks like with the person who's been running the effort at Meta, Alex Himmel.”
Exploring AI Wearables
1:42 to 2:35
Discussion on the current use cases and future potential of AI wearables.
“We're going to talk about the new models, especially the Ray-Ban Meta Optics, which I have in my hand here.”
A Day in the Life with AI Glasses
2:35 to 4:40
Alex describes a day using AI glasses and the assistance they provide.
“year, a couple of years down the line, how am I going to go about my daily life if this product works in a way that's different from the way that people are going about their daily lives today.”
Real-World Applications of AI
4:40 to 6:38
Exploration of various scenarios where AI glasses enhance daily activities.
“wearing these glasses and having the technology be where you want it to be.”
Skepticism Around Glasses as AI Devices
6:38 to 8:31
Discussion on whether glasses are the right form factor for AI devices.
“That was a very detailed, well detailed example of how this could change.”
Why Glasses Work for AI
8:31 to 11:26
Alex explains the advantages of glasses as an AI interface.
“And so similarly, the glasses, even if they run out of battery or they're just turned off, there's still something you would wear if you wear optical glasses or you wear sunglasses.”
Personal Superintelligence in Glasses
11:26 to 12:42
Discussion on the concept of personal superintelligence and its impact on user experience.
“If it's providing value outside of the AI, then the AI is going to keep getting better and providing more value as it gets better.”
Trusting AI to Capture Moments
12:42 to 14:00
The balance of AI capturing experiences and user trust in technology.
“present in that moment rather than having to be removed from it just so I can have a video of it.”
The Future of AI Glasses
14:00 to 17:00
Learn about the evolution and design of AI-powered glasses for capturing moments.
“So it'll be, let's say you're at a party, then you'll say you can capture it and it will.”
Show all 24 chapters
Enhancing User Experience with AI
17:00 to 21:40
Discover the practical use cases for AI glasses including audio and video functionality.
“Well, our top use case on the glasses is audio.”
Introducing Ray-Ban Meta Optics
21:40 to 24:40
Explore the features and benefits of the newly launched Ray-Ban Meta Optics glasses.
“So can you talk a little bit about the product decisions behind building a pair like this?”
Innovative AI Applications in Daily Life
24:40 to 28:00
Understand how AI can enhance daily tasks and interactions through wearable technology.
“And I'm thinking again, like if I'm at my work computer all day long and I have a pair of these optics on with my prescription, maybe there's going to be new use cases for me.”
Exploring AI in Wearable Devices
28:00 to 35:23
The discussion focuses on the potential functionality and applications of AI integrated into wearable devices, particularly glasses.
“That's, yeah, you can use many different chat apps, but a lot of people use WhatsApp.”
Exploring AI in Wearable Devices
35:26 to 36:58
The discussion focuses on the potential functionality and applications of AI integrated into wearable devices, particularly glasses.
“It's one of the most honest conversations I've had on this topic.”
The Future of AI Assistants
36:59 to 42:01
Continuing the conversation about the competitive landscape for AI-powered wearables and their functionalities.
“Morning Brew Daily breaks down the biggest news in business every morning so it fits seamlessly in your day.”
The Evolution of AI Assistants
42:01 to 43:35
Discover how users may choose different AI assistants for various tasks and the competition in the wearable tech space.
Meta's Vision for Wearables
43:36 to 46:04
Explore Meta's long-term vision for augmented reality and the development of their Orion glasses.
“And towards the end, it was almost like a throwaway, but he was talking about how important it was going to be to have a computing wearable like a pair of glasses.”
Replacing Phones with Wearables
46:05 to 48:53
Learn about the potential of wearables to replace phones and enhance user experience through AI technology.
“And so I am curious because, you know, with the big question about AI devices is, is it a new category and everyone has one and the so-called legacy devices or is it a replacement?”
Privacy and Facial Recognition in Wearables
48:54 to 51:29
Discuss the challenges and considerations around privacy in facial recognition technology for smart glasses.
“The Times said it would let where's of the smart glasses identify people and get information about them via Meta's artificial intelligence assistant.”
AI Infrastructure and Device Balance
51:30 to 56:00
Understand the balance between running AI models in data centers versus on-device for improved performance.
“and he's paralyzed and can use computers thanks to Neuralink.”
The Case for Local AI Processing
56:00 to 57:40
Exploring the benefits of running AI models locally on devices.
“think, is going to consistently run in data centers.”
The Evolution of Ray-Ban Meta Glasses
57:40 to 59:30
A behind-the-scenes look at the development of AI integration in Ray-Ban glasses.
“The more complex things are going to have to run on servers or on personal devices that are larger and more capable.”
Features and Future of Ray-Ban Meta Glasses
59:30 to 1:01:30
Discussing the features, pricing, and future updates for Ray-Ban glasses.
“We're announcing them at the end of March.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Big Technology Podcast:What does the future AI device or devices look like? Let's talk about it with the head of wearables at Meta right after this. I'm just back from ServiceNow's Knowledge 2026 in Las Vegas, and the conversations I had there are ones you're going to want to hear. I sat down with their president and CPO, Amit Zaveri, on the platform strategy powering enterprise AI, chief people and AI enablement officer, Jackie Canney, and chief digital information officer, Kelly Romack, on what AI really means for the workforce. The technical leaders behind ServiceNow's NVIDIA partnership on shipping AI at scale and Ulta Beauty on deploying ServiceNow's technology across 1 ,300 stores.
0:37Big Technology Podcast:If you want to know where Enterprise AI is actually headed, not the hype, but the real story, you can find these videos on my YouTube channel. Search Alex Kantrowitz on YouTube. Depending on who you ask, between 80 and 95 % of Enterprise AI projects fail. To get AI to work for you, you don't need more tokens. You need better people. Aboard pairs powerful proprietary tools with senior engineers who've seen it all. That combination means your project doesn't stall, doesn't drift, and doesn't fall. It ships. Whether you're a startup that needs to get to market or an enterprise with complex legacy challenges, Aboard delivers exactly what your business needs fast.
1:13Big Technology Podcast:Aboard is your partner for AI transformation. Visit Aboard.com and let's build something together. Welcome to Big Technology Podcast, a show for cool-headed and nuanced conversation of the tech world and beyond. We have a great show for you today. We're going to talk about what the future of AI device or AI devices looks like with the person who's been running the effort at Meta, Alex Himmel. Alex, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me. Always great to meet someone else named Alex. I'm very excited to be here. Well, it's great to have you here. We're going to talk about the new models, especially the Ray-Ban Meta Optics, which I have in my hand here.
1:48Big Technology Podcast:And if you're on audio, we'll talk about the products that we're holding. These are slimmer models that are meant to be used indoors or can be used indoors in a way that the others haven't been. And it really opens up a whole new set of use cases for these AI wearables, which is what your line of glasses are. But to begin with, I just want to start broad, because these glasses that have had the meta assistance within them have been in market for a long time. But I think folks are still trying, and I personally am trying to figure out what the use case is. I mean, it's obviously great for photos and you can listen to music on them, but this broader idea of an AI device is yet to really shape, take form in a lot of our minds.
2:34Big Technology Podcast:So can you just begin by painting a picture for me of in the future, maybe it's a few months or a year, a couple of years down the line, how am I going to go about my daily life if this product works in a way that's different from the way that people are going about their daily lives today. I'll get there, but can I go backwards first? A little bit of how we got there? No backwards. We go forwards. We're only going forwards. Look, everybody wants to take a step back. We'll do that over the course, but I'd love to hear your perspective from the start here, and then we can work our way backwards.
3:07I'll go forwards first. The only reason I hesitated is that I think when a lot of companies and people have tried to get into this space and say, hey, what's going to be possible with this? I think they try to jump too far into the future and ignore kind of how to get there. So I won't go that way. Let's get there in a bit. I think what you're going to see is that if you've got a pair of glasses that is already comfortable to wear, is already providing value as sunglasses or as obstacle glasses, like we're launching with the ones I'm wearing and the ones you were just talking about, then you're going to get more help and assistance with going about what you're trying to do during the day from your glasses.
3:44They can see what you see. They can hear what you hear. You can talk to them. Right now, I use mine a ton to ask simple lookup questions, like if I'm driving and my six-year-old son is in the back just pegging me with questions, I can ask my glasses without having to take my eyes off the road and hands off the wheel. And you're going to see more use cases develop as the AI is getting better insanely rapidly. And so you'll be able to do things like instead of saying, what am I looking at? you'll be able to say help me do this thing that i would normally have to look up a youtube video to walk me through or look at a real online or you'll be able to say hey summarize the conversation that you and i just had uh to give me kind of the highlights from it and so it'll be this proactive assistance that you can get and it'll be like you'll it'll feel like you have an assistant that's always with you not taking you out of the physical world but just helping you
4:35Big Technology Podcast:do what you're already trying to do okay but walk me through a day in the life of alex himmel wearing these glasses and having the technology be where you want it to be. You wake up in the morning, put the glasses on, and talk a little bit about the things that you're going to do. Tell us a story, basically, of how your life will be different wearing a pair of these. I'm waking up in the morning. The first thing I do is go for a run. So I'm putting on my Oakley Meadow Vanguard sunglasses. I'm wearing my Garmin watch. as I'm running. The glasses are automatically taking a few videos as I go. Stitching them together is a reel for me.
5:14That feature is already live. As I'm running, I can ask my glasses for stats, for how far I've run, for updates in the training program that I'm doing. That's also live and getting better. When I get back, I'm starting to make lunch for the kids to pack it for them to go to school. I notice I've run out of Ziploc bags and Nutella, and I ask my glasses to order those for me to replace them. They arrive a few hours later at my house. I'm driving the kids to school. They're asking me some questions about what they're doing after school, what time is their practice, who are they playing in their Little League game today.
5:54My glasses tell me the answer to that. So I don't need to look it up on my phone. I go to work. I'm in a series of meetings. Notes are taken on my behalf by the AI with next steps, people who own action items. That's automatically sent out to the people who are present and we're able to follow up on those. I'm in a conversation with you. I can't remember the name of someone that I think we both mutually new from New York where we're both from. My glasses helped me remember what I was trying to remember in the moment. And it kind of goes from there. But you can see it's a companion. It's always with me.
6:33And it's taking the things I'm already doing and just making them a little bit easier for me.
6:37Big Technology Podcast:Okay. First of all, thank you. That was a very detailed, well detailed example of how this could change. And I think as we start thinking about the way that an AI assistant might end up helping us in life like these examples really help for instance just obviously sports has been something that we've seen wearables in for a long time now so those of us who are like runners we know what the wearable world is about i know you have a garmin i'll just say i've been wearing the garmin too and the thing i hate is um having to check the watch like looking down at the watch while I'm running because it just like it is an unnatural movement and so if you could see that on the glasses that's great but let me let me challenge you for a moment on whether glasses are the right form factor sure so you know I'm going to think through some of the use cases that you're talking about for instance getting updates about the run and and if you're wearing the Oakley's well can't you do that on on headphones and then you're working on preparing lunch.
7:41Big Technology Podcast:Can't you do that on like a smart speaker like Alexa? And then, you know, potentially you're in a meeting, maybe your headphones is taking that as the input, and I don't think a laptop is going away. So you will see that on the laptop. So obviously, you know, we're here again, we're at Meta headquarters here in Menlo Park, California. We have a bunch of different models of glasses in front of us. They initially weren't conceived as an ai device these were mostly for you know taking photos and and videos and listening to music and then ai came about later and we could it's kind of a fun story about how that happened so we can talk about that but why glasses in particular and why not the other form factors that other companies are talking about all right that's an invitation to take a step backwards so now you can do it now i can do it not too far back i won't go too back i won't go too far back but i I think one of my favorite analogies is that an escalator never breaks, it becomes stairs.
8:36And so similarly, the glasses, even if they run out of battery or they're just turned off, there's still something you would wear if you wear optical glasses or you wear sunglasses. They're still providing value to you. And I think the approach that we took with glasses, which is different from what I think some other companies have taken, where it was really about how do we leapfrog forward massively with technology it's that look even if the glass are doing nothing they're ray-bans which is the ray-ban wayfarers the most popular brand and style in the world of all time so they're comfortable they're good looking we have a number of different colors and styles and skews you can find something you like and looks good on you and so even when they're doing nothing they're providing value so part of the bet there and the part of the thesis is this is something you'd wear anyway as you're going about your activity.
9:27You're right that I could go running with headphones. And if it's early in the morning and it's dark out, I don't want to wear sunglasses. I want to wear either nothing or clear lenses. But the Oakley Medi-Vanguard tier, they're not only sunglasses, which I do like to wear when it's bright out. They're also headphones. So if I want to listen to music, they are playing music for me. And so they're providing a few different pieces of value. And then on top of that, I can use the AI. So that's part of the bet. And so some of the devices that you mentioned, I could put a smart speaker in my home. I could do other things, but that's an additional device on top of something I'd already be using.
10:02We don't think glasses are going to be the only form factor. I do think they're the most common form factor. When I think, how many people do I know, kids included, who do not wear sunglasses or optical glasses? I can think of one person, literally only one that I know. What's that person's deal? They're a unique human. I'm not going to go into it. I will say they wake up and stare into the sun for 20 minutes because they think it's good for their eyes in the morning so that they're a unique person. We're not going to take their advice on that.
10:30Big Technology Podcast:Folks, do not walk directly into the sun. Okay. But most people do. Now, when you look past that, you know, we like to look at other form factors. When we say wearables, the way I like to think about this space is I think humans have already evolved to what works well, what form factors are comfortable to wear. And so we think that you'll kind of see popularity in that order. What are things you're already wearing and using? Glasses, number one, but excited about other things that people are already wearing and not very excited about ones that you don't see people using frequently. Like some of these devices that you clip on or that you, if you don't see a lot of people doing that already with analog versions, I think it's unlikely that you're going to see an AI version take off.
11:13Big Technology Podcast:Okay. So it's the fact that it's a common device, it has utility outside of the AI, means that it won't be too much of an addition to put on your body to wear, and therefore it has the best chance of winning. Yeah. If it's providing value outside of the AI, then the AI is going to keep getting better and providing more value as it gets better. So let's talk about that AI. Meta's in the process of developing personal superintelligence, as the company describes it. And I imagine that personal personal superintelligence will go into these glasses. So I'd love to hear your perspective on what personal superintelligence is.
11:56We like to think of it as how can the AI empower you to be the best version of you? At least that's the way we think about it in wearables. And so we don't, we're not envisioning a world where the devices you're using or the wearables you're wearing are taking you out of the world that you're in. So how can we, we talk about being present yet connected. You want to be connected so you have tools that help you, but it's really about being present with the people you're with, the local businesses that you're in, the experience that you're in. One of the best examples is, you know, I go to my kids' performances at their school and instead of holding my phone up to watch the thing they're doing through a video screen, I'm watching it through my glasses and the glasses are recording it.
12:41So it's allowing me to be more present in that moment rather than having to be removed from it just so I can have a video of it.
12:49Big Technology Podcast:Yeah, I had that experience. I was in Thailand and there was this beautiful sunset and I wanted to reach for my phone, but I remembered I had the glasses on and I just filmed it there and I have that memory, but I was there just like living it and not looking at it through a screen, which was really nice yeah and and that's where we're going too and i think the you can imagine stuff like that you can imagine little ways that the ai can start to make it better we um auto capture is something that we're launching and imagine it's the same thing but the glasses can automatically detect that there's a moment worth um worth capturing you can imagine you're at a kid's birthday party and rather than constantly having to trigger photos or videos or pull out a device it can seize a smile, there's a birthday cake, it can capture those moments that you want to make sure you didn't miss.
13:38Big Technology Podcast:Really? But then the question is like, do you trust it really? Because that gives it the opportunity to capture images whenever you're doing anything. And there are times where even if I'm wearing those glasses, I don't necessarily want it to record. Yeah, so you explicitly enter a session where you say, start live capture. So it'll be, let's say you're at a party, then you'll say you can capture it and it will. At a birthday party or sunsets coming up or some moment where you think something's going to happen that I want to make sure I don't miss. I'm sure you've had some experiences where something will happen and you're like, oh my God, I cannot believe I didn't get my phone out or my glasses out to capture that.
14:20Big Technology Podcast:Yeah, that's pretty cool. So let's talk a little bit about the history here. Like I think for us, you know, we're deep into the tech world. It sort of makes sense to be wearing an AI around. But there is an argument, you know, looking at history that there have been attempts to do it and it hasn't worked. Thinking about the UMaine pin, for instance, or the Google Glass. So what do you think is different about this time? I mean, I think the biggest thing is that at the core, it's a good looking, comfortable, stylish pair of glasses. I mean, it's the reason we're partnering closely with SLR Luxottica.
14:58They're our partner we've been working with for years. They're the makers of Ray-Ban, Oakley. They have many other brands, both owned and licensed. They have a number of stores. They are experts at lenses, experts at manufacturing. And working with them is because they deeply understand what it means to have a good-looking, stylish, comfortable pair of glasses that works well for people. And that is the core of what we're trying to do with the glasses. And so we've launched the Ray-Ban Wayfair was the first. Then we had other Ray-Ban styles. We've launched the Oakley Meta Vanguard, which are sport, the Oakley Meta Houston, which are lifestyle Oakleys.
15:34That's just the beginning of what we want to be a really broad selection of brands and styles and SKUs. We want them. Everyone's face is shaped differently. Everyone has a different sense of style. And we need to make sure that they're comfortable and people like how they look at them.
15:51Big Technology Podcast:So I definitely agree with you that the way that these things have looked has been a major impediment to them. Google Glass, for instance, didn't win any fashion awards. And you look at a pair of Ray-Ban Meadows and, you know, they look nice. Like I would like to look at them at a Glass Store and be like, you know, maybe these. But the other part of it is function, right? Like what can they do for you? And I think that the lift that they would give you was never enough, even if they were stylish, to merit charging up another device and putting it on. I mean, if you think about what it takes to, I mean, this is a company that knows consumer behavior so well.
16:33Big Technology Podcast:What it takes to change consumer behavior is crazy. People sort of get set in their ways. And so, and that's the way that they operate. And if you think about them using phones, for instance, to be able to have AI functionality on your phone and then to move to start using it somewhere else, it has to be more than it just looks a little bit good. So how do you think about creating what effectively you're trying to do is create a brand new consumer behavior? Well, our top use case on the glasses is audio. It's talking on the phone or it's listening to music. The thing I usually tell people is, hey, if you're going to be walking outside, which you should do, it's healthy for you, it's good to move around during the day, get some sunlight and you've got to make phone calls, this is a great product for you.
17:21We've got, it's comfortable, the audio is very loud, the mics perform better than any earbuds you could get because we've got five microphones and we have amazing noise suppression. So if you're going to do phone calls, it's great. I was just skiing and I was going downhill at 40 miles an hour where my Oakley met at Vanguards and got a call from my friend I was trying to meet up with and had a conversation with him while I was on my way and I asked him in the middle, can you tell that I'm skiing right now? Or he actually didn't realize. So it's great for those use cases. Or if you're on the beach throwing the football around, it's just, listen to some music.
17:59It's a great way to make the experience better. Photos and videos are the other thing. We see a lot of content shared on Instagram that otherwise wouldn't have be captured, wouldn't not be captured. We saw some great footage from the Olympics that just happened with practice rounds. One of my good friends is a firefighter who sent me a video yesterday from the fire truck that he was driving to the scene and rescuing someone. I mean, you're just seeing some great footage that you otherwise would miss. And then the AI is where I think you're going to see the next real trajectory of growth is people find that they're able to do things they never thought were possible and are just really convenient with their glasses.
18:36Big Technology Podcast:And so it's interesting to hear you say, okay, use case number one is the speaker, use case number two, photo video. Is the reason why AI is below that because, is it because the AI isn't good enough yet? What do you think is holding AI back? I mean, if you think about the power that people say AI has, you would imagine that it should be use case number one the potential of ai is undoubtedly way higher than anything else right now just if you just look at the sheer rate of improvement in the industry it is abs it's mind boggling i think for a lot of people when for a lot of people still when they're looking at ai it looks like a blank canvas on a wall it's like it's like if i handed you a piece of paper and a marker and said, all right, make me something great.
19:25Kind of don't know what to start with. And so part of what we're doing while we start with auto capture, and we'll have some other things launch shortly that are very relatable, it's just trying to give people easy to understand, easy to use things with AI. And over time, you'll be able to do more and more complex and advanced tasks that really take advantage of the underlying capabilities. I think people are still learning how to best use AI. I mean, it started as, in general, it started as a tool to help you write things. And I think now you're seeing people are coding with it in new and crazy ways.
20:00You're starting to see agents and agentic behavior take off where you can give the AI a goal and it will go accomplish something for you while you're not actively prompting it. So I think we're seeing that progress happen quickly. And we believe that wearables will be the best form factor eventually for the AI. because they're always with you, they can see what you see, they can hear what you hear, and there's something you can talk to throughout the day when you need it. And they can be proactive, and they can do things that you didn't ask them to do but that are helpful.
20:34Big Technology Podcast:And it's interesting. So we're talking about this new world that we seem to be heading into where AI is agentic and doing stuff for us. The older versions of the Ray-Bans, the MetaRay-Bans, were mostly for outdoor use. I mean, I have a pair here, right? These are Oakleys, they're great for sports. Great for sports. And actually, I'd spoken with the person who ended up leading the Google Glass project, and one of his biggest regrets was actually starting it as an indoor product because these things are much better. People feel much better about them if you're outdoors with them as opposed to if you're indoors with them.
21:16Big Technology Podcast:But that brings us to this new pair, the Ray Bay Meta Optics. They are smaller. They're lighter. The battery life runs longer. Clearly, they're much more indoor than they are for outdoor use. And that just sort of opens up the aperture of what you can end up doing with this, again, going back to this idea of this AI assistant or this personal super intelligence that's with you all the time. So can you talk a little bit about the product decisions behind building a pair like this? And what will it enable when you start wearing it indoors, let's say while you're at work? Yeah, we're very excited about the Ray-Ban MetaOptics that we're launching right now.
21:57I mean, there are a number of reasons to start with sunglasses. One, which is kind of the, there's a practical one, there's a use case one. On the use cases, you know, I started with, hey, talking on the telephone, taking photos and videos. a lot of those are outdoor scenarios where you're out and about you want your hands to be free you're talking on the phone sunglasses work very well there also as you're trying to a lot of what we do is take electronics and squeeze them into really tight form factors and sunglasses tend to be a bit bigger in style than optical frames do you wear them for shorter periods of time so they can be a little bit heavier but also they just style wise they tend to be thicker than the optical frames that you wear all day.
22:40We've made a lot of advances in miniaturization and just optimizing where we place the electronics that we now have a smaller, lighter frame, which is the optics that we're announcing here. But that's not it. We already see when we measure engagement and retention on our glasses, so how often do you use them, and then after some period of time, are you still using them actively? those numbers are highest when we have clear lenses or transition lenses which means that we're already seeing the behavior that people are trying to use them indoors or from outdoor to indoor transition means it works great where i'm outside doing something and i'm on the phone i walk inside the lenses go clear and i can keep doing what i'm doing um so the raven met optics they're not just so there's a lot of things to like about them i'm wearing them here you have we're able to thin out the arms, the front frames are thinner, they're also a little bit flatter to be more optical friendly.
23:37The nose pads are replaceable, they come with three or four different pads that you can put in so it's the right fit on your nose. The tips are adjustable so an optician can warm these and then bend them to help make sure that they stay on your face well. The temples, you have over extension hinges so that they're more comfortable to put on and they squeeze against your head comfortably um so there's a lot of advances and this is just the hardware to make sure that it's very optical friendly um we're all you know we're we just had an event um the sol exotica has a switch um event in orlando i was at a few weeks ago where we announced this to opticians so we expect this to be in optical channels if you wherever you go to buy your optical glasses now your optometrist should hopefully have these glasses that they're able to help get you the right lenses for your prescription and help work for you so we're really going on and we think that we're seeing all these trends in the data that people want the opportunity to wear them inside is their everyday optical glasses and we hope this is a product that people like for that and then so talk a little bit about the I
24:46Big Technology Podcast:mean we're kind of living in this open claw moment in a way where people are thinking about giving AI access to a lot of what they do to be able to take action for them. And I'm thinking again, like if I'm at my work computer all day long and I have a pair of these optics on with my prescription, maybe there's going to be new use cases for me. So have you thought through those and how does that sort of fit into your vision of building AI wearables? I mean, I think there's a lot of... I mean, when you think about... So when you go from AI the way we've experienced it to agents that leap is that instead of prompting the AI saying write me something that does this or write code that does this you can give it a goal and it will figure out how to accomplish that so you can say I'm trying to debug why I'm using coding one I'm a software engineer by background so please bear with me but I can say something like the The behavior I get when the battery is low doesn't feel right.
25:51It currently says this when it's low on battery in my ear and I would like to change it to this. And the agent can go and figure out what piece of code that's defined in and how to adjust it and create a diff that you can then prepare to submit as an engineer. The advance to OpenClaw is you see a few things. One is that you're able to, what engineers would call creating a cron job, but you're able to schedule things that happen regularly on your behalf. So for example, every day at, in the middle of the night right now, I have, well, every Sunday right now, I have my claw go and help create a schedule for the week that I then send to our nanny, which has, you know, the kids schedule each day of the week and does that automatically.
26:41it's scheduled which is a new thing and the second is the clock can figure things out that it doesn't yet know how to do so it's able to reason through things and develop new skills that it didn't have previously i think for wearables that creates a bunch of possibilities i mean you think about i go through my day and i'm constantly writing down things that i need to remember to do later like you again you and i can have a conversation we were just talking before this about um pizza that i'd like to try in new york that your your buddy's open and normally i'd write down you know pizza detroit pizza new york you know write down the name and plan to follow up with you on it i could just tell um my claw here's what here's the follow-up i plan to do and it can take care of that for me similarly um well i can give you a number of examples that are down that line but i think that let's hear more actually i'm interested in the examples um for example You'd say, you know, this weekend's an exciting weekend for me.
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27:41The Yankees are in town for opening weekend. I get playing against the Giants. They're there Wednesday through Saturday. I've got tickets for Saturday. I ordered that many months ago because I'm a Yankees fan, born and raised in New York. My kids, I'm working on them being Yankees fans as well. We've organized a big thing. I have 20 tickets, inviting friends. And normally you'd write down, remember to send an email with the ticket details to people who are coming but you can just tell your claw hey draft an email for me to these four people just say their names don't say they're even just to these four people with the ticket details that you can find in my email and it just does it and it should just be able to do that and you this is the way you use it this is you know we've got we're trying out a whole bunch of different tools i certainly am i'm using using them and yeah using like that today and so uh when your your vision of
28:34Big Technology Podcast:with the glasses could be instead of having to like, cause I think the way that you speak with OpenClaw is through WhatsApp. Most people do it through WhatsApp. That's, yeah, you can use many different chat apps, but a lot of people use WhatsApp. So is your thought then, again, if just I'm trying to flesh out the product vision here, you have a pair of glasses like this with you while you're working, right? Which I guess is the case for you right now. You could just say something to it and then some agentic engine on the back end will be able to do these use cases for you. Yeah, I mean, that's a pretty good articulation of it.
29:12I mean, I think of it in two ways. One is, and it's in two directions. One is, as I'm going through my day and there's something I, you know, a lot of, it's funny how many people in tech decide that the thing that they need to invent at their next startup is like a task app to just help you track the things that you need to do. And I think instead, as things come up like, oh, shoot, I forgot to send out the email with the details for the game, or I forgot to send out a birthday invite for my kid's birthday coming up. You can just say, hey, I forgot to do that, draft it for me, and I'll look at it tonight.
29:51At some point, you can say, send it on my behalf, but I think we're still kind of in a draft version. I think that's one end of it. The second is, I like to describe it's, you know, imagine if you had the perfect person sitting right next to you who will whisper in your ear at the right time. So, like, you know, my wife is very good at, you know, elbowing me. Like, if I'm about to say something that I'm gonna regret, my wife is really good at letting me know that I'm about to do that.
30:22Big Technology Podcast:That's good. I'm too quick. I always just blurt it out. I feel bad for her. See, so, I mean, this is a scenario that might work for you. Yeah, oh, maybe, okay. You're saying the glasses can be like it. Don't, don't say that. It's like, you know, I'm about to, I'm about to sit down and regret, or I just can't think of the work, you know, I cannot think of the movie, or the actor, or the restaurant, or the thing that I'm trying to think of. Or you have these, I mean, other examples, like, how often do you have a conversation with someone, like, oh, you're going to St. Louis. let me tell you i'll send you a thing later that has the places that i recommend inst louis i do that maybe five percent of the time like i promised everybody to i was going to send you the name of the pizza place that i'm recommending nate's detroit pizza brooklyn and manhattan but i could have just said it and to this smart thing and then it would have sent it for me and it could have sent uh yeah it could have sent it could have sent me a whatsapp or a text message or something that just, so then I had it, I wouldn't forget it.
31:21But, you know, if you put it out there on your podcast, I think you'll still get a lot broader distribution than the agent. I hope so, but you never know.
31:30Big Technology Podcast:But that is interesting. I mean, like, again, with this idea of reminders, you know, I think it would be great, for instance, if I'm wearing something that is sort of paying attention to what I'm doing. And it can, you know, when I was with Boz, Andrew Boz with the CTO of Meta, year and a half ago, two years ago, maybe at this point, one of the things he talked about was these glasses can be aware of your situation. So it could potentially be something that is like an open claw functionality, but we'll wait until that conversation that I'm having is over. And I say bye, and then it can whisper in my ear, hey, by the way, like, do you want me to to do that thing you were saying.
32:14Exactly. I think a lot of us right now are feeling like we just get too many notifications as we're going through the day, whether it's your phone buzzing or your watch buzzing. And one of the things people are nervous about, for good reason, is that, hey, if you're wearing more wearables or ones that are even more intimate, meaning if you've got display glasses on, what you don't want is a one more place to put a bunch of notifications that distract you as you're going through the day but the potential of the wearables is that if they have context of are you talk whether or not i'm talking at the moment or what am i saying or who am i talking to they should be able to really intelligently filter out whether it's the right moment to deliver something or the wrong moment too right
33:03Big Technology Podcast:you know it's interesting because we i mean we're already my wife and i are already using like smart speakers in our house to do some of this. But yeah, I think it could be interesting if it is something that's done in glasses. And I think the one, especially contextually aware, and I think the one thing that I wonder is, so much of the talk around AI is it's going to level things up and it's sort of this revolutionary thing. And I wonder, is that revolutionary? like shouldn't we be expecting more of it and maybe I'm just like perpetually dissatisfied um and unappreciative of what's happening but I'm curious what you think like is that really a revolution or is that something that just helps us be a little bit more productive AI in general or smart notification more intelligence around notifications I think that just the AI again that we talked about that's listening and can handle these tasks for us um I think it's gonna pretty revolutionary i think well i think it'll be both i think there'll be a number of things that each individual one is tiny like it's just a oh yeah that's like a small improvement but if you add that up throughout the day or throughout the week or throughout the month it's the sum of that will be meaningful and then similarly i do think there the ai will do things for you that you're shocked it was able to do and will find pretty revolutionary i mean there are small things i mean the the minute i stopped running with my phone you know i go for some pretty long runs and i do need to be able to contact other people while i'm out there because things can go sideways also i'm a father and so if you reachable i need to be reachable um the the day i was able to stop bringing my phone with me because i had a cellular connected watch was a pretty big thing i think for many people that feels like oh big deal you can do phone calls on your watch now.
34:57I usually have my phone. But for me, that was a major thing. But that's an example of small things that add up. I do think agentic AI is really going to be able to do a lot of things for people that will feel like it is super helpful.
35:12Big Technology Podcast:Okay. There is a question about whether the best device will work or the best AI assistant will work. And I want to cover that when we come back right after this. This episode is brought to you by Orchestra. A couple of weeks ago, I sat down with David Plouffe, two-time Obama campaign manager, senior White House advisor, and now a partner at Orchestra for a conversation about AI democracy and the massive gap between how this industry sees itself and how the rest of the country sees it. It's one of the most honest conversations I've had on this topic. You can watch the full thing on my YouTube channel.
35:49Big Technology Podcast:Just type in Alex Cantrell. Orchestra is a strategic communications firm, helping organizations navigate exactly this moment. Check them out at orchestraco.com. Most leaders know how work is supposed to happen, but when it comes to how it actually gets done day to day across tools, teams, and handoffs, they're mostly guessing. That's exactly the problem Scribe Optimize was built to solve. Trusted by over 80 ,000 enterprises, including nearly half of the Fortune 500, it gives leaders a live view into how work is really happening across approved business apps without interviews, manual process mapping or extra effort from the team and because it's continuously analyzing real workflow activity the insights stay current instead of going stale the moment a process changes you can see which workflows are happening where time is going and which tools are involved it automatically surfaces top issues explains why they're happening and even recommends ways to fix them with estimated time savings and importantly it's built with privacy in mind so activities only captured in admin approved business apps and user level data is anonymized by default The kind of visibility that used to take months, now it's just always on.
36:53Big Technology Podcast:If you're ready to stop guessing and start seeing, visit scribe.how slash bigtech. That's S-C-R-I-B-E dot how slash bigtech. Morning Brew Daily breaks down the biggest news in business every morning so it fits seamlessly in your day. I'm Toby Howell. And I'm Neil Freiman. And each morning we cover everything from the latest tech headlines to why nobody can afford a house right now. You'll leave each episode of Morning Brew Daily smarter and ready to take on the world around you. And some people are saying it's the best part of their morning. Because we know something you don't. Business news doesn't have to be boring.
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37:32Big Technology Podcast:And we're back here on Big Technology Podcast with Alex Himmel. He's the VP of wearables at Meta. Alex, before the break, we were talking about what will enable a company to win this AI wearable. battle. Will it be the form factor? Will it be the sleekness of their device? Or will it be the assistant inside? And I think we're going to have a handful of companies going after this. Obviously, you guys are far out in front of people. You've had this in market for a long time. But it's no secret that OpenAI is planning not just a device, but a family of devices. Google Google has their own set of devices and Amazon has the Echo in market and Apple may be adding some form of maybe it's internal Apple models.
38:18Big Technology Podcast:Maybe it's a version of Gemini into their headphones. That's just the doc. So I think there's a strong argument to be made that the company that has the best assistant will be the one that takes everything. because, again, if you're trusting this to be deep in your life and to be responsible for some of your activities, you're going to want to use the best option. So I'm curious if you agree with that. And if you do, does that mean that Meta, to win this battle, needs to have the best AI assistant on the market? I think it's going to be a combination of things. I think that when we talk about wearables, I think if people don't like the device, they're not going to wear it.
39:08True. I think it needs to be comfortable, it needs to be stylish, especially if it's glasses or even watches. If you don't like the way it fits on you and what it says about you, then you're not going to wear it, even if it's 20 % better in terms of functionality than the alternative. I also think the software needs to be really amazing. And so, I mean, it's also no secret. I mean, there's a lot of the devices you mentioned where, you know, these are rumors. I think I've heard those rumors from many places, so there's probably some credibility to them.
39:44Big Technology Podcast:Well, I will say, actually, OpenAI for sure is not a rumor. They are building a family of devices. Google is building these devices. Google has announced publicly. Amazon has the Echo in the market. I think the only one that's rumored is Apple. That's a fair point. The Apple ones, remember, a number of others have been some announcements. So that's fair. I was just commenting on that, you know, they're not actually in the market yet. So they can't really react to what exactly they're doing or pros and cons to devices. Also pretty well known that we're investing heavily in AI here at Meta. We've recruited quite a team.
40:22We're investing heavily in model training and other things. And I think we've got, I think our AI and our software needs to be really good. I mean, we're going to be, assuming everyone enters the market, we're going to be competing with companies who have released devices with really high quality, good performance, devices you can depend on every day. So our quality needs to be really good. And then the AI needs to be amazing. And we've been working on it internally. I think that's pretty well known. We're using a bunch of the new models internally and feeling pretty good about the progress we're making.
40:57I think we're going to have some really exciting things to show people in the first half of this year as we start to launch new models and new features on top of them, new features on mobile phones, but also new features and wearables that I think are going to be pretty good. All right. Looking forward to that.
41:14Big Technology Podcast:I guess the point I'm making is it seems in this more than other types of computing, it's kind of winner takes all. That might be my perspective. If you're going to have an agent that you so trust with everything, you're probably going to have one. Doesn't that sound right? It's like you'll have one inbox. It doesn't really work to have multiple email addresses. I think there's a number of reasons why I think you'd use, why many people use one assistant more than many. I mean, one is you pay for each of them, and so you probably want to pay for fewer rather than more. Second, like the more you work with it and it learns about you, the better it'll perform outside of underlying capabilities.
42:01So I do think that people will, for the most part, choose one assistant, but they may also choose one assistant for different tasks right i mean i'm sure i'm a bit of an outlier since i'm right in the middle of the technology but i use a bunch of different assistants and i use different ones for different things that i'm trying to do that could be point in time uh based on what's what's better at what right now and maybe that'll consolidate as as the models mature but we are very focused on we we want our glasses to be the ones that offer people the broadest selection of brands and styles that we think people will like to wear and in making our software the best and we've been i mean there are other devices in the market but we have been um we believe there's going to be a lot more competition coming than i think that we've been than we've faced re than we faced to date part of it is that a lot of people have tried to build glasses and it didn't work out at first ourselves included our first our first launch didn't go as well as we had hoped it to but then when others pulled back from the market i think we doubled and tripled down and i think you know when you're looking at it seems like now every year or maybe more frequently than that we're launching new hardware right it's because we've been investing heavily for many years and you're starting to see how the fruits of that come to market i was in
43:24Big Technology Podcast:here I think 2017 or 2018 and myself and my editor, we had a long conversation with Mark Zuckerberg about some tech related thing or a new launch at Facebook. And towards the end, it was almost like a throwaway, but he was talking about how important it was going to be to have a computing wearable like a pair of glasses. And I was like, oh, that's a story. And we didn't end up writing it, but it just does go to show that Meta has been thinking about this for a very long time. And I guess what we're seeing today, the devices that work and are good and people enjoy using, it's probably like an outgrowth of the metaverse and the Oculus work here, but also not just like, let's try this.
44:12Big Technology Podcast:Like to me, it seems like it's been kind of core for almost a decade here. That's definitely true. When we acquired Oculus, part of the logic was, it wasn't, you know, Oculus, it's a virtual reality headset where you're looking at an immersive view. At the time when we acquired Oculus, part of the rationale was there was a research division led by Michael Abrash that was looking at augmented reality technologies. Augmented reality translates into glasses and wearables. And right out of the gate, we started investing in the Orion prototype, which is what we showed about a year and a half ago now, publicly and have continued to show and that's been in the works for as long as oculus has been here and that was always part of the the big vision mark's had incredible conviction that this is something that was going to be critical and that we were going to invest in this space even when you know we certainly a lot of invention we've been working on here we certainly had some some highs we had some lows where you know certain pieces of technology didn't hit um the progress that we're hoping to at various stages.
45:20Even through that, we really continued to invest even when there were reasonable times to put doubt in it. I think we're certainly glad that we did, but it really took a lot of conviction. I give a lot of credit to Mark, also to Boz, for having a lot of conviction in what we were doing.
45:37Big Technology Podcast:So speaking of Boz, I was listening to you on the Boz to the Future podcast, And you spoke about the ambition. And to me, it's pretty interesting because you talked about how, I think it was the Orion glasses, which have the screen in them, which are not publicly available yet. But there is a version with the screen available, the display, that is available to folks to pick up. But you said, like, when people tried on Orion, it was the first time that they felt like a pair of glasses could replace a phone. And so I am curious because, you know, with the big question about AI devices is, is it a new category and everyone has one and the so-called legacy devices or is it a replacement?
46:22Big Technology Podcast:So is the ambition here to replace the phone? I mean, I think the ambition of the phone at some point was to replace laptops and desktops. And I think those certainly haven't gone away. I actually find myself using them more and more in the world of AI right now. Oh, yeah. but mobile phones have taken off I mean the the number devices sold and used and let me it's they're ubiquitous for all kinds of things I think wearables should be similar I mean we're expecting them to be you big at some point we think that they'll be ubiquitously used by people providing a ton of value that doesn't mean phones are gonna go away but I think you'll see wearables be used for are some of the things that you do on phones today and a bunch of things that you don't use phones for today.
47:10I mean, there's certain things you just wouldn't do because it's, you know, one of the crazy things is that some of the technology around being able to recognize what you're looking at has been around for quite some time on mobile phones, but you don't hold up your phone to try to make sense of the world in front of you because it's just kind of a weird behavior. Some people do, but it's not a normal thing to do. I might be one of those people at times, but i don't see it i might be guilty as well i don't see it very guilty whereas with a wearable it's a pretty natural behavior right and it's one of the most frequent ai use cases that we see on our glasses just what is it that i'm looking at oh it's this building it's this landmark it's this type of plant don't eat that mushroom um that's important or do eat that mushroom also you shouldn't be randomly eating a mushroom that's in front of you but we're you know we're trying to advice wherever you can um so i i think that and then i think the reaction that people had with orion was because you know you did the demo we show you a bunch of example things that you can do with the glasses and i think with the really big field of view display and the ability to place content in the space in front of you it's easy to imagine all the other things that you can do with it i mean we didn't show in there maybe this is a bad example i'll use it anyway because of the we were in in the year.
48:24We didn't show that you could watch March Madness basketball games on a virtual television while still in a room with other people. That was an awesome use case last week as the... You did that. It's pretty great. You put a browser window, and you just kind of put it, like, if you're around me, I can put it right there and watch the tournament games. Also, the wrestling tournament, the NCAA wrestling tournament was at the same time, and my alma mater, Stanford, did great in that, too, so that's another thing you watch.
48:50Big Technology Podcast:What is your facial recognition plans? There was a New York Times article talked about this feature called Name Tag. The Times said it would let where's of the smart glasses identify people and get information about them via Meta's artificial intelligence assistant. I saw the article. I'm familiar with the one that you're mentioning. I mean, it's worth noting just out of the gate, you know, we do not have a feature that's launched that helps you write. We don't have a feature called that or that does that feature that's launched in the glasses. it is one of the most frequently requested features from people.
49:25I mean, we hear from our blind and low vision community that they wish they knew who was in front of them, who was walking by. We hear from people who go to conferences and events. It would be great to be, you know, you're going there to meet people. It would be nice to be able to recognize the people that you're meeting. we hear from just a number of people, you know, just anecdotally, hey, I wish, unprovoked, what I really wish these could do is help me remember the names of the people I've met before. And so we get a lot of, we get a lot of asks. I don't think we're the only company that's heard that before, you know, it's certainly been developed and prototyped by a number of companies that we've heard about.
50:09But to launch a feature like that requires being really thoughtful with how it works, making sure it's privacy first, making sure that it's not creepy, making sure that it's providing value while not making people uncomfortable. I mean, the fundamental talent of these devices, if I'm wearing them and you're uncomfortable with me wearing them, I'm probably gonna stop wearing them. Yeah, they're not worth anything. Yeah. And so we've gotta be really conscious of that. And with each feature that we're looking at, that's something that we're gonna have to be conscious of as we go. So this is one of the things that has come up.
50:46It's one of the trickier things for privacy reasons, user comfort reasons. There's also some legal considerations. So it's certainly not something we take lightly and it's something that we will need to think about. There are versions of that feature out in the wild right now. You see it a lot for communities, the Blind Live Vision community especially. especially UC versions of that. I think Microsoft has an app that you can use for that. But I don't know, we don't have something ready to launch. We don't have something launched. It's just one of the things that we're thinking about.
51:21Big Technology Podcast:Well, first of all, I'll say this. I think a year and a half ago, I was at Nolan Arbo's house in Yuma, Arizona. He's the first Neuralink patient, and he's paralyzed and can use computers thanks to Neuralink. So I think that's one of the more underappreciated parts of wearables or even brain computer interface is that the accessibility component is amazing. He's been paralyzed, was paralyzed for eight years before he was able to use that device. And then like literally couldn't use the internet, could only do with voice on like an echo. And then, you know, started playing video games again. He played a video game against me and he beat me and that's amazing.
52:01But I definitely sort of the privacy concerns and obviously you're aware of them.
52:08Big Technology Podcast:I see why people would not want to live in a world where somebody can wear a device that can identify me. Yeah, totally understand. And I think if you end up in a place where, you know, someone you've never met before walks up to you on the street and says hi Alex you know and ask your question it's weird it's really weird and that you know that goes against a whole bunch of social norms and it feels creepy I think a lot of the features all the features we're trying to build are taking things that are normal interactions and trying to make them a little bit easier so the idea of a name tag is like what is it what is a time where you wouldn't wear a name tag right you could have a virtual version if I were at the office right now it would not be weird at all for a co-worker to know my name because I walk around with a badge that has my name on it the whole time and so a digital version of that would not be weird at all like it's it's common behavior similarly like where where get knowing someone's name is most useful is I've met you you've told me your name and I just cannot remember it it could be it's a it's a new meeting I'm in we're meeting for the first time we just went around the table of 10 people and I got nine out of 10 in my head and I'm missing the 10th or you know you're we have kids in the same class and we've met once two months ago and I just I know your kid's name and I cannot remember yours you know if only there was an app that would allow me to maybe add you as a friend and we could connect that way?
53:53You know, this is the time the AI should help. I can think of some apps like that, but I can't remember the names of them. You might have to help me out. It's not meta.
54:03Big Technology Podcast:Okay, that's interesting. So just to conclude this part, you said not launch, but that doesn't mean it's not underdeveloped. It's one of the ideas that I think comes up with every company in the space. Right. It's definitely not launched. It's something that's come up a bunch. We would not rule out the idea that we have something in that space, but it would have to be really well thought out and really well done and done in a way that people felt comfortable with it. Otherwise, it just wouldn't make any sense. Right. You can basically rule out this idea that I would be able to take a look at random people on the street and know their name by looking at them through the glasses.
54:44Yeah, I just don't think that's a feature that people want or would be comfortable with. Okay. All right.
54:48Big Technology Podcast:It's good to get your perspective on that. Let's talk a little bit about how this kind of changes the AI infrastructure story. You know, it's kind of interesting because we're going to a place where we have smaller models. and some of them don't have to run them in, you know, a multi-billion dollar data center build out. You can just run them on device. So, you know, Meta is an interesting company because it's in the middle of doing that big build out, but it also has devices that I would imagine someday would want to run an AI model on device. Can you talk a little bit about that balance and sort of does one eventually cancel each other out or do you need both?
55:29Well, so the servers and data centers that companies are building out, meta included, and there's two kind of core functions that those serve. One is the training of the models. And so that certainly happens in data centers and that's where it's going to continue to happen. And that's where a lot of the investment is going right now. And the other, as you say, it's running the inference. So it's when you're using the model, where are those models running to answer the prompts or to agentically help you with tasks. The former, I think, the model training, I think, is going to consistently run in data centers.
56:03On where inference is served, there's a number of reasons to try to move that to devices that are not in data centers. One is the latency and reliability will be better. You've used apps on your phone, and the more things are local, the less network interruptions or low bandwidth or packet loss can cause issues. And so that's one reason to do it. Second is cost to the user. You know, when you're paying the fees to whatever assistant you're using right now, a lot of those fees are because it costs real money to be serving you. And then you have usage caps.
56:42Big Technology Podcast:You wouldn't have that if you used that model or device. Yeah. Yeah, and a lot of that cost goes into power right now, and if it's on your device, you're on the hook for charging your device and whatever power it runs. And so I think you're going to see, there's certainly a lot of reasons. Oh, and privacy is the other obvious one. You're in control of your data if it stays on your device. The things working in the opposite direction are smaller models are not as capable as certain tasks. And so the real math and evaluation to do there is for a given set of tasks, how well does the model perform in a smaller version of it that's run locally?
57:25And if it performs well, I think there's a lot of incentive to have it run locally for everyone, for the end user, also for the business like us providing it. But I think you'll end up with a bit of a mix. The more complex things are going to have to run on servers or on personal devices that are larger and more capable.
57:47Big Technology Podcast:I think I want to end on the story of how this integration of AI into the Ray-Ban metas came about. Because initially they were not envisioned with the AI assistant inside. And then you're driving with your kids one day and what happens? Well, so we had the Ray-Ban Metaglasses, you know, they were the second device that we were launched, the second version of Ray-Bans that we're launching with SLL Exotica. And it was one of the most heavily debated devices that we were working on. Because it wasn't a major, the first version hadn't done as well as we had hoped. It wasn't a major technical leap from the first one.
58:33And so we're like, I don't know, is it worth doing or should we just go straight to the display glasses. Which were under development at the time. Which were already multiple versions of them were already under development at the time. And then AI, Gen AI, large language models took off out of nowhere. I do remember, it was a Saturday, I had my kid in a child seat in the back seat, and I start getting a wall of text from Mark on WhatsApp, which led with, hey, I think these glasses might be a great AI device. and then just like thought after thought. So, you know, as any responsible parent would do, I pull over to the side of the freeway and went back and forth with them.
59:11And that was a Saturday. By Monday, we had pivoted 200 people on the team to be building AI for these glasses. And the rest is history. Although I think the AI gave us an idea for a vision of what the glasses could eventually be with a really high ceiling. ironically all the features that we weren't sure if they were a big enough technical leap turned out to be a big enough technical leap and i think or would have given us a lot of the initial usage and traction the audio is cross the threshold where it's loud enough and the sound quality is good enough to be talking on the phone and listening to music and the image quality is good enough to be sharing videos to instagram or you know the app of your choosing that you're that you feel good about and that people like to engage with just can imagine the kids in the back getting
59:58Big Technology Podcast:kind of restless and you being like listen daddy's launching a new category of device we're gonna have to relax yeah and fast forward two years and here it is the number one question in my house is when there's going to be a kid's version of the glasses really they really want to have a pair of their dad's glasses that they can wear around okay before we leave let's just run down the glasses that exist today so there's the standard ray-ban metas uh then you have the the oakley version of houston lifestyle there is i believe on your side here is the display glasses that's the uh pair of glasses with a screen inside of them that are available for sale how much do those cost these are 7.99 okay including the neural band than i thought and there's a band that you can use that takes your neural pulses to be able to um uh control the screen and then there are these Ray-Ban Meta Optics which are lighter and they're coming out April 16th.
1:00:54We're announcing them at the end of March. They hit shelves in the early to mid-April. Okay. And you missed the Oakley Meta Vanguard's, our sport class. Okay, that's right. Great for biking, skiing, running.
1:01:10Big Technology Podcast:Yeah, now the running use case is definitely fun and I think maybe we'll save my back from... I was actually running and checking my phone and ended up pulling my back on a run because I kept looking at my pace so often. So if I could have that in a screen, that alone would be worth all your efforts. So thank you. Got to get you a cellular watch too. You got to stop holding your phone. That's right. All right, Alex, great to see you. Thanks so much for coming on the show. Thanks, Alex. Thank you everybody for listening and watching and we'll see you next time on Big Technology Podcast. Most people don't realize how much their personal information is being bought and sold every day.
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1:02:57Big Technology Podcast:It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where Aura comes in. Aura actively removes your data from broker sites and keeps it off. They also instantly alert you if your information shows up in a breach or on the dark web. But Aura goes beyond data protection. With one app, you get a VPN, antivirus, password manager, spam call protection, dark web monitoring, and even up to$5 million in identity theft insurance, all backed by 24-7 U.S.-based fraud support. Other companies might sell just credit monitoring or just a VPN. Aura gives you all of it, together, at the same price competitors charge for just one service.
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From the publisher
Alex Himel is Meta’s VP of Wearables. Himel joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss the future of AI wearables and why Meta believes glasses could become the next major computing platform. Tune in to hear how AI assistants might help with daily tasks, meetings, reminders, fitness, photos, and real-world context without pulling people out of the moment. We also cover the competition from OpenAI, Google, Apple, and Amazon; the privacy questions around facial recognition; on-device AI; and the story of how Mark Zuckerberg pushed Meta to turn Ray-Ban glasses into an AI product. Hit play for a sharp look at whether smart glasses are finally ready to break through, and what they could mean for the future of personal AI.
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