While other companies build AI agents for computer programming and office work, Meta is focused on what its CEO Mark Zuckerberg calls “personal superintelligence,” or putting AI into people’s hands to help them achieve their goals.
What are Meta’s New AI Devices?
Meta’s AI devices are wearable hardware designed to integrate artificial intelligence into the daily lives of users. Powered by Meta’s Muse AI assistant, the product line includes lightweight Meta VR glasses, several different smart glasses and the wearable Muse Charm device, which the company expects to release by December 2026.
At the heart of this mission is Muse, an AI agent optimized for personal superintelligence. Powered by its AI model Muse Spark and running on a private, secure virtual machine, Muse can fill out online forms, make phone calls and take other actions that could save users time and money. And through partnerships with services like Ticketmaster, OpenTable and Expedia, Muse can buy concert tickets, make a dinner reservation or book a flight. A New York Times reporter used it to streamline an insurance claim, identify and cancel unnecessary subscriptions and even negotiate with a seller on Facebook Marketplace. Eventually, Muse will allow users to have live voice calls and video chats with their avatar, a furry doll-like figure whose name and appearance can be customized by users.
Muse is currently available via an app, website and a WhatsApp integration, but Zuckerberg ultimately believes the most direct means of injecting AI into people’s lives is not through smartphones, but through hands-free, always-on devices that have artificial intelligence built directly into them.
Meta’s growing hardware portfolio, announced at Meta Connect 2026, is the latest development in a broader industry shift away from smartphones and toward AI-first devices, raising bigger questions about consumers’ appetite for giving Meta and its agents direct access to their eyes, their data and their lives.
What Are Meta’s AI Devices?
Meta’s AI devices include virtual reality glasses, smart glasses and a yet-to-be-released wearable device.
Meta VR Glasses
Meta’s biggest hardware announcement so far is its Meta VR Glasses. Unlike previous VR headsets like the Meta Quest 3 or the Apple Vision Pro, Meta VR Glasses look more like a pair of sunglasses than a heavy set of goggles that need to be strapped on.
“We have built a new kind of VR device that delivers the same magical feeling of presence and immersion, high-resolution displays and views of the world around you in a form factor that is a pair of glasses for the first time,” Zuckerberg said at Meta Connect 2026.
The glasses are about five times lighter than the Quest 3, according to the company, weighing as much as an apple or a deck of cards. Its lightweight design is made possible by offloading the computing power, battery and storage to a pocket-sized device that connects to the glasses by an optical tether. Apple used a similar configuration with its Vision Pro headset.
No other hardware is required beyond the glasses and the pocket-sized device that accompanies it. Users navigate the interface with just their eyes and their hands. They can tap, scroll or swipe in the air, and the device can make sense of the user’s intentions by tracking their eye and hand movements. The glasses can also project a virtual keyboard onto any flat surface, allowing users to write an email without any additional hardware. The glasses are integrated with Muse as well, which can respond to verbal commands.
The Meta VR Glasses, which are slated to launch in spring 2027, are expected to cost $1,299. That’s more expensive than the Meta Quest 3, which started at $500 when it launched in 2023. But it’s more than $2,000 cheaper than the Apple Vision Pro.
Meta’s VR glasses are built for both entertainment and productivity. Users can stream 3D movies, play virtual reality video games and scale other shows, movies and live sports up to an IMAX aspect ratio. They can sync their laptop and an unlimited number of other screens too, and it has full-color passthrough that allows them to see their surroundings while they work. Meta’s VR glasses also take video calls to the next level by portraying each person as a photorealistic hologram, allowing callers to feel like they’re in the same room with each other.
Meta Smart Glasses
Meta has led the smart glasses market since it launched the first-generation Ray-Ban Stories in 2021. These glasses allow users to capture photos and videos, send messages and make phone calls. A second-generation model integrated an AI assistant that could help a user translate a foreign language or identify an object. Then, in 2025, Meta launched its display glasses that allow users to check their messages, preview photos and receive notifications, along with a wristband that can detect when the user taps, scrolls or zooms in using their fingers. In March 2026, Meta introduced prescription AI glasses.
At Meta Connect 2026, Meta announced that it would be integrating Muse into the third-generation of AI smart glasses, allowing users to have hands-free access to their virtual assistant. It also unveiled smart glasses without cameras — perhaps in response to complaints about users being photographed and filmed without their permission. The company built on its partnership with EssilorLuxottica brands Ray-Ban and Oakley while expanding its own Meta Glasses styles with new collaborations with celebrities like Kylie Jenner and K-pop star Lisa.
Zuckerberg said he believes glasses are going to be the biggest tech hardware category in years to come, predicting that the 2 billion people who already wear glasses — and some who don’t wear glasses — will eventually make the transition to smart glasses. By seeing and hearing the same inputs as a user, he believes AI-powered specs will be more helpful in people’s lives.
Muse Charm
Users who don’t want to wear VR or smart glasses will soon be able to talk to Muse’s cute, furry and customizable avatar through Muse Charm, a two-inch touchscreen device that can be worn as a pendant. To ask a question or make a request, users simply press a button and speak to their virtual assistant.
Several media outlets have said the device is akin to a 21st century Tamagotchi, a digital pet toy that was popular in the late 1990s. Indeed, the Muse Charm does tap into a growing sentimentality for a world where people did not rely so much on smartphones. And as TechCrunch points out, it also taps into Gen Z’s growing affinity for “charms,” or items that dangle from bags and purses. While charms can now include everything from cosmetics to skin care products, the trend started with Labubus, the little plush dolls that look eerily similar to Meta Muse’s avatar.
Zuckerberg did not share many details about the Charm at Meta Connect. Meta is still finalizing the finishing material and the layout of the components, he said, but it should be ready to ship in time for the holiday season in December 2026.
The Rise of AI-First Devices
Meta’s push to away from smartphones toward AI-first devices is part of a larger shift in the consumer tech industry. OpenAI, Google and Amazon are all searching for the ideal form factor that unlocks AI’s full potential for digesting large amounts of multimodal data through ambient computing to anticipate the user’s needs in real time. By developing a popular device, they could also open up a new revenue stream to fund the immense expense of training and running large AI models.
The first wave of AI-first devices arrived in late 2023, when AI startup Humane launched its AI Pin, a wearable device that could project information onto the palm of the user’s hand. The product received terrible reviews, however, and the company sold its intellectual property to HP for only $116 million. In early 2024, AI startup Rabbit launched the R1, a pocket-sized device designed to interact with software and complete tasks for users. This device was also panned, and Rabbit stopped producing it.
Google, which pioneered smart glasses in 2013 with the now-discontinued Google Glass, launched its Android XR platform to power VR headsets and AI smart glasses in late 2024. In 2025, the company integrated its AI assistant Gemini into Google Home, which powers its smart home devices. In May 2026, the company announced that it would be introducing smart glasses that allow users to access Gemini through verbal commands, as well as display glasses that produce in-lens visuals. Both products are expected to debut in fall 2026.
Amazon, which launched its Echo smart speaker in 2014, Echo Show smart display in 2017 and Echo Frame smart glasses in 2019, announced in 2025 that it would be integrating its AI assistant Alexa+ into its family of hardware devices. Also in 2025, Amazon acquired AI wearables startup Bee, which developed a wristband that can learn from users’ conversations to provide personalized insights, send emails and add events to their calendar.
But perhaps the most-anticipated AI-first device comes from a collaboration between ChatGPT developer OpenAI and legendary Apple designer Jony Ive. While very few details have been released, several different rumors have been swirling around. Most recently, Bloomberg reported that the device will be a screenless speaker that can control smart home appliances, respond to messages and access ChatGPT. This device is reportedly part of a family of AI-powered products, which could also include smart glasses and a lamp, according to The Information.
Privacy Concerns Around Meta’s AI Devices
Meta’s dive into AI-enabled devices has raised privacy concerns from multiple angles, from nonconsensual recordings to mistrust around the company’s data collection practices.
Covert Recordings
Meta’s new audio-only smart glasses may be aimed at consumers who want to talk to Meta’s AI without making other people uncomfortable. Meta’s smart glasses have been dubbed “pervert glasses” on social media, as they allow their wearers to covertly film others without their consent, which is illegal in some settings.
When someone records with a smartphone, they have to aim their phone at the person they want to film. This could be done covertly, but it’s not as easy as looking at someone through a pair of glasses. Meta’s smart glasses do emit a small LED light when they’re recording, but the light could go unnoticed on a sunny day. In some cases, users have been able to remove or cover up the light on their glasses to record surreptitiously, but Meta says a recent software update has disabled the camera on thousands of those users.
Journalists have also discovered that the footage captured by Meta’s smart glasses is sometimes reviewed by overseas contract workers who label data for AI training. Those workers have described seeing bank information, nudity and other sensitive information — some captured intentionally, some captured incidentally. In the future, Meta reportedly plans to integrate facial recognition technology into the glasses, which could potentially endanger the safety of people who are identified.
Data Collection
If users want to access Muse within their smart glasses or Muse Charm, they will have to decide whether they will grant Muse access to the files on their devices and their personal accounts — like their email, calendar or health insurance. Meta is developing a separate email account for Muse, allowing users to forward a specific email without handing over their entire archive of emails.
Meta has said that it took data privacy concerns seriously when developing Muse, which runs on a private, secure virtual machine. The company also said it plans to eventually develop a completely confidential virtual machine encrypted with a key held only by the user, preventing anyone else — even Meta — from accessing it.
Still, the company may have a hard time gaining users’ trust due to its history of privacy violations. The Federal Trade Commission charged Facebook with eight privacy violations in 2011, and the FTC ordered Facebook to obtain users’ consent before sharing users’ data. In 2019, the FTC found that Facebook violated that agreement and ordered the company to pay a $5 billion penalty.
The $5 billion fine was due in part to the 2014 Cambridge Analytica scandal, when researcher Aleksandr Kogan developed a personality quiz app that collected information not only from people who used it but also from their Facebook friends. Kogan worked with data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica, which matched the personality profiles of those users to U.S. voter records to develop targeted political advertising in the 2016 U.S. election. The incident sparked extensive media coverage and a congressional hearing, raising questions about the company’s stewardship of user data.
In 2023, the FTC found that Facebook had violated the conditions of the 2019 settlement, along with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Rule (COPPA Rule). And in August 2026, Meta agreed to pay up to $17.1 billion to settle a multi-state lawsuit alleging that Facebook and Instagram were designed to keep children and teenagers engaged despite risks to their well-being.
In 2026, the company was also sued for allegedly using Facebook and Instagram photos to train some of its image-generation models and the facial recognition technology that is reportedly being developed for Meta’s smart glasses.
So, while Meta claims it’s building privacy protections into Muse and its AI devices, the company’s history of data privacy issues may give users pause before they give it direct access to their most sensitive accounts and intimate moments.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Meta Muse?
Muse is Meta’s new AI agent that can automate everyday tasks, like making phone calls, booking flights and managing subscriptions. Muse has its own app and website, but it’s also integrated into Meta’s new VR glasses, smart glasses and Muse Charm, a wearable device expected to ship by December 2026.
What are Meta’s VR glasses?
Slated to launch in spring 2027 for $1,299, the Meta VR Glasses look like a standard pair of sunglasses rather than bulky goggles. They are five times lighter than the Meta Quest 3 because the battery, storage and computing power are housed in a separate pocket-sized device connected by a tether. Users navigate the interface entirely with eye and hand movements instead of physical controllers.
What is the Muse Charm?
The Muse Charm is a wearable, pendant-sized device featuring a two-inch touchscreen that lets users interact with a customizable, furry avatar version of Muse. Slated for release by December 2026, it operates with a simple push-to-talk button and is designed to appeal to users who want AI assistance without wearing smart glasses or reaching for their smartphone.
What are the privacy concerns regarding Meta’s smart glasses?
Because Meta smart glasses can take photos and videos, it allows its users to film other people without their consent. The glasses do emit a light to indicate the user is recording, and the company says it disables the camera when users cover up or remove that light. Additionally, journalists found that some footage is reviewed by overseas contract workers for AI training, which has inadvertently exposed sensitive information like nudity and bank details.
