The Origin Story of Meta AI

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 twenty twenty six in Las Vegas and the conversations I had there are ones you're going to want to hear. I sat down with the president and CPO AmZeri on the platform strategy powerowering Enterprise AI, Chief peoplee and AI enablement Officer Jackie Canney, and Chief Digital information Officer Kelly Romac on what AI really means for the workforce There technical leaders behind SericeNow's NvIia partnership on shipping AI at scale and Ulta Beauty on deploying ServiceNow's technology across thirteen hundred stores. If you want to know where Enerprise AI is actually headed, not the hype, but the real story, you can find these videos on my YouTube channel seearch Alex Kantritz on YouTube. Depending on who you ask, between eighty and ninety five percent of entnerprise AI projects fail To get AI to work for you, you don't need more tokens. you need better people. A board 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, a board delivers exactly what your business needs fast ard is your partner for AI transformation. Visit abard. 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 talk about what the future of AI device or AI devices looks like. person who's been running the effort at Ma Alex Himmel, Alex, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me. Always great to meet someone else named Alex. V'm veryy excited to be here. Well, it's great to have you here. We're going to talk about the new models, especially the Rayan Meta Optics, which I have in my hand here. 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 To begin with, I just want to start broad because These glasses that have had the meta assistance have been 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 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 has yet to really shape take form in a lot of our minds. So can you just begin by Paint a picture for me of in the future Maybe it's a few months or a year, a couple 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 No backwards. we go forward. We're only going forwards. Look look everybody wants to do a 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. I'll go forward first. The only reason I hesitated is that I think when a lot of companies and people have tried to get in 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 launched with the ones I'm wearing and the ones you're 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. They 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 look upp 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, helpelp 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 to give me kind of the highlights from it. And so it'll be this proactive assistance that you can get Andll be 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 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 Talk a little bit about the things that you're going to do. L give us like tell us a story basically of like how your life will be different wearing a pair of these Yeah I'm waking up in the morning. The the first thing I do is go for a run. So I'm putting on my Oakley Mada vanguard sunglasses and'm wearing my garmin watch As I'm running, the glasses are automatically taking a few videos As I go, stitching stitching them together is a real for me. That 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 asked 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 U what they're doing after school, what time is their practice? Who are they playing in their little Lague game today My glasses tell me the answer to that Um 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 were 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 knew from New York where we're both from. My glasses helped me remember what I was trying to remember in the moment Aam And kind of goes from there. but you can see it's a companion. it's always with me and it's taking the things I'm already doing and just making them a little bit easier for me 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'm wearing the garment too. It's good. And the thing I hate is having to check the watch, like looking down the watch while I'm running because it just like is an unnatural movement. And so if you could see that on the glasses, that's great. But let me challenge you for a moment on whether glasses are the right form factor.ure So you know, I'm going to think through some of the use cases that you're talking about, for instance, getting updates the run. and if you're wearing the Oakleys, well, can't you do that on on headphones And then you're working on preparing lunch 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 headadquarters here in Menlland 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 videos and listening to music, and then AI came about later. And 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? That's an invitation to take a step backwards. So now you can do it. Now I can do it N not too far back. I won't get too back. I won't go too far back. but I think one of my favorite analogies is that An escalator never breaks, it becomes stairs And so Similarly, the glasses, even if they run out of battery, and they 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 Even if the glass are doing nothing They're Raybands, which is the Rayband Wayfarer, the most popular brand and style in the world of all time comfortable, they're good looking. We have a number of different colors and styles and sks. You can find something that you like and looks good on you. And even when they're doing nothing, they're providing value So part of the bet there partart of the thesis is This is something you'd wear anyway as you're going about your activity. You're right that I could go running with headphones. and if it's early in the morning, it's dark out, I don't wantan to wear sunglasses. I want to wear either nothing or clear lenses But The Oakle Me of Vanguards here, they're not only sunglasses, which I do like to run to wear when it's bright out, they're also headphones. So if I want to listen to music, they arere 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 We 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 obstacle glasses have to I can think of one person Literally the only one that's that person's deal Um, They're unique human. I'm not going to go into it. I will say they wake up and stare into the sun for twenty minutes because they think it's good for their eyes in the morning so they're a unique person. We're not going to take their advice on that. Yeah folks do not look directly into the sun. Okay I have But most people do. then 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 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 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 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. Med is in the process of developing personersonal super intelligence as describes it. And I imagine that personal personal super intelligence will go into these glasses So to hear your perspective on what personal super intelligence is U We like to think of it as how can the AI empower you to be the best version of you?? So that's the way we think about it in wearables And so we don't We're not envisioning a world where The deevices 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 and I'm watching through my glasses and the glasses are recording it. So it's allowing me to be more present in that moment. U rather than having to be removed from it just so I can have a video of it Yeah, I had an 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. I was there. just like living it and not looking at it through a screen, which was really nice Yeah, 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 Auto capapture is something that we're launching Imagine it's the same thing, but the glasses can automatically detect that there's a moment worth and you can imagine you're at a kid's birthday party and rather than constantly having to trigger photos or videos or plot a device. it can sees a smile, there's a birthday cake, It can capture those moments that you want to make sure you didn't miss. Really But then the question is like, Do you trust it, really? 'causeuse that gives it the opportunity to capture images whenever You know, 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 ent you explicitly enter a li 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 suunnsetets 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 Pretty c So let's talk a little bit about the history here. Like I think for for us You know, we're deep into the tech world it sort of makes sense to be wearing an AI. around There is an argument, you know looking at history been attempts to do it and it hasn't worked You main 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 Esler Lgxotica. They are partner we've been working with for years. They're the makers of Rayban, 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 We've launched the Rayband Wayfare was the first. Then we had other Rayband styles. We've launched the Oakley Metada vanguards, which are sport, the Oakley Metadaahaustons, which are lifestyle Oakleys That'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. I definitely agree with you that The way that these things have looked has been a major impediment to them. Tuel glass for instance, did it win any fashion Awards and you look at a pair of Rayan Meadowas and They look nice. L I would like look at them at a glass store and be like You know, maybe maybe these But the other part of it is function. 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. What it takes to change consumer behavior is crazy. Yeah right? 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 Uh be able to have AI functionality on your phone and then to move using it somewhere else. It has to be more than it's just it just looks a little bit good. So how do you think about creating what effectively you' trying to is create 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 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 We've got it's comfortable, the audio is very loud. The mes. perform better than any earbuds you could get because we've got five microphones and we have amazing noise suppression And so if you're gonna to do phone calls, it's great. I was just skiing And I was going downhill at forty miles an hour where in my Oakley meteta vanguards and got a call from my friend I was trying to meet up with and had a conversation with him while I was my way and I asked them in the middle. Can you tell that I'm skiing right now or he actually didn't realize? Wow. So it's great for like it's great for those use cases. or if you're on the beach throwing the football around, it's just it's listening to some music, it's a great way to make these parents better Photos and videos are the other thing. We see a lot of content shared on Instagram that otherwise wouldn' not be captured. We saw some great footage from the Olympics that just happened with practice rounds U One of my good friends is a firefighter who sending me a video yesterday from the fire truck that he was driving into the scene and rescing Sound. 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 that they never thought were possible and are just really convenient with their classes. And so it's interesting to hear you say, okay, use case number one is the speaker, use case number two photo video U 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 Ae back 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. J if you just look at the sheer rate of improvement in the industry, is it's mind boggling I think for a lot of people, when But 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. Kind of don't know what to start with And so part of what we're doing why we start with Auto Capture and we'll have some other things launched 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 in advanced tasks that really take advantage of underline 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. you'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 And it's interesting. So we talking about this new world that we seem to be heading in into where AI is agentic and doing stuff for us. The older versions of the Ray bands, the metaay bands were Uh Mostly for outdoor use. I mean, I have a pair here, right? These are Oakleys, great for sports Great for sports Um, and actually I'd spoke with spoken with the um person who ended up leading the Google Glass proroject, and one of his biggest regrets was actually starting it as an indoor product Um, 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. But That brings us to this new pair, the Ray meteta Optics. They are smaller, they're lighter 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 builduing a pair like this and What will it enable when you start wearing it indoors? I'd say, while you're at work Yeah. We're very excited about the Rayant metet optics that we're launching right now. I mean, there are a number of reasons to start with sunglasses. One, which is kind of the the There's a practical one use case one. on the use cases, you know, it 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 We'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 lenses go clear and I can keep doing what I'm doing. Um So the Raven Med 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 Optle friendly. The 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. So there's a lot of advances and this is just the hardware to make sure that it's very obstacle friendly. We're all you know' we just had an event EO Exotica has a switch 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 to 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 as their everyday obstacle glasses? And, um we hope this is a product that people like for that And then so talk a little bit about the, I mean, we're kind of living in this and claw moment in a way where people are thinking about giving A 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 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, the 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 mus a code, want I'm a software engineer by my background, so please bear with me, back can say something like Um The behavior I get when the battery is low It doesn't feel right. It currently says this when it's low in battery in my ear and I would like to change it to this And the agent can go and figure out Where, you know, 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 open cllaw is you see u 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 about every Sunday right now, I have my Ca 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 it does that automatically, it'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 bunch of possibilities I mean think about I go through my day and I'm constantly writing down things that I need to remember to do later. Like you and I can have a conversation. We were just talking before this about pizza that I'd like to try in New York that your buddies open. and normally I'd write down Pizza, Detroit, pizza, Nework, you I write down the name and plan to follow up with you on it. I could just tell U Mc cla Here's what here's the follow up I plan to do And it can take care of that for me Similarly, So I can give you a number of examples that are down that line, but I think that let's hear more actually. I am interested in the examples Um For example, you'd say, you know, this this weekend's an exciting weekend for me. the Yankees are in town for opening weekend playing against theiants are their Wednesday through Saturday. I've got tickets for Saturday orered that many months ago because I'm a Yankees fan born raised in New York My kids. I'm working on them being Yankees fans as well out orrganize a big thing, I have twenty 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 He draft an email for me to these four people. ust say their names, donon't say their em. J to these four people with the ticket details that you can find in my email just does it and it should just be able to do that And 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 that today. And so when your vision of that what the glasses could be instead of having to like. because I think the way that you speak with open cllaw 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. 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 while you're working. I guess is the case for you right now. You could just say something to it and then someogentic engine on the bac end will be able to do these use cases for you That's Yeah, I mean, that's a pretty good articulation of it U, I mean, I think of it in two ways. One is and it's in two directions. One is Um 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, you know track the things that you need to do. And I think instead, As things come up, like, oh, shoot, I forgot to, you know, I forgot to send out the email with the details for the game or I forgot to send out a birthday invite for, you know, my kids birthday coming up You can just say, Hey, I forgot to do that, draft it for me and I'll look at it tonight At some point, you can say Senator on might be half, but I think we're still not kind of a draft version. I think that that's one end of it The second is I like to describe. it's You know, imagine if you had 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. L 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 That's good. I'm too quick. I always just blurt it out. I feel bad for her. . I mean, this is an area that might work for you. Yeah. Oh, maybe R S classes can be like it don't. It's like, you know, I'm about to I'm about to don't regret or I just can't think of You know, I cannot think of the movie or the actor or the restaurant or the thing I'm trying to think of Or you have these I mean other examples Howftten do you have a conversation with Sack? Oh, you're going to Stain. Louis Let me tell you, I'll send you a thing later that has the places Id recommend in Stain. Louis. I do that Maybe five percent of the time Like I promised everybody I was going to send you the name of the pizza place that I'm recommending Ns Detroit Piser But I could have just said it to this smart thing and then it would have sent it for me. And it could have sent a yeah, could have s 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. but you know, if you put it out there in your podcast, I think you you'll still get a lot broader distribution than u ag I hope so, but you never know But that is interesting. I mean, like again, with this idea of reminders U you know, I think it would be great, for instance, if I'm wearing something that is paying attention to what I'm doing It can, you know, when I was with Bos, Andrew Bos with the CTO of Meta year and a half ago twoo 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 cloth functionality. will 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 do that thing you were saying Exactly. I think 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 or Um And you know one of the things people are nervous about for good reason is that, hey, if you're wearing more wearables or ones that are, you know 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 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 You know, what's interesting because 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 you know, I think the one, especially contextually aware, and I think the one thing But I wonder is you know, so much of the talk around AI is it's a level it's going to level things up and it's, you know sort of this revolutionary thing. And I wonder Is that that revolutionary? Like shouldn't we be expecting more of it? And maybe I'm just like perpetually dissatisfied U and unappreciative of what's happening, but I'm curious what you think, like Is that really a revolution? orr is that something that just helps us be a little bit more productive? AI in general or smart notific more intelligence around notifications? I think just the AI again that we talked about, that's listening and can handle these tasks for us Um I think it's going to be 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 the AI will do things for you that you're shocked it was able to do and willll find pretty revolutionary. I mean, there are small things. I mean, the The minute I stopped running with my phone And 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 Al I'm a father and so Id reachable. I need to be reachable Um The day I was able to stop brringing my phone with me because I had a cellular connected watch was a pretty big thing. And I think for many people that feels like Oh big deal. You can do phone calls on your watch now. I usually have my phone. but for me, that was a major thing But that's an example of like small things that add up I do think Aentic AI is really going to be able to do a lot of things for people that will feel like it is super helpful There is a question about whether like the best device will work or the best AI assistant will work And I want to cover that when we come back rightight after this This episode is brought to you by Orchestra. 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He finished a five K in ninety fourth place R right after a man wearing jeans They still give me a medal I don't want a reward for doing? I want a reward for dominating Like Daily Prize metrro, I'm three hundred sixty five. I play for free and win real rewards, like up to five thousand dollars in cash weekly Unli like that Joker in Denim Beth three hundred sixty five. winning is everything. Gambling problem called one hundred gamler twenty plus only must be physically present New Jersey Pennsylvania,' andC supply. And we're back here on Big teechnology 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 F factor 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 openpAI is planning not just a device. family of devices, 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, maybe it's a version of Gemini into their headphones. That's just the dog. So. U 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 with like to be deep in your life and to be and to be, you know 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 I think it needs to be comfortable, needs to be stylish, especially if it's glasses or 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 even if it's twenty percent better in terms of functionality than the alternative I also think the software needs to be really amazing And so I mean, we're No, it's also no secret. I mean, there's a lot of So a lot of the devices you mentioned were, you know, these are rumors. I think I've heard heard those rumors from many places. so there's probably some credibility to them Well I will say actually open opening eye for sure is not a room They are building a family of devices Google is building these devices. Google hason how they go 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 have been some announcements. So that's fair. I was just commenting on, you know, they're not actually in the market yet so I can't can't really react to what exactly they're doing or pros and cons to devices Um also ' pretty well known that we're investing heavily in AI here here at Meta. We've recruited quite a team. We've 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 Um release devices with really high quality, you know, 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 you know we've been working on it internally. I think that's pretty well known. We're using a bunch of the new models internally. I feeling pretty good about the progress we're making. and I 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. I guess The point I'm making is It seems more than more than in this more than other types of computing U It's kind of win it takes all That might be my perspective. Like if you're going to have an agent that you so trust with everything Pably gonna have one doesnn't that sound right Like 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 would use one assistant more than many. I mean, one is pay for each of them. and so probably want to pay for fewer rather than more. Second like, the more you work with it, it learns about you, the better it'll perform outside of underlying capabilities. So I do think that people will For the most part choose O Assistant, but they may also choose one asssistant for different tasks.. I mean, I'm sure I'm a bit of an outlier since I'm right in the middle of the technology, 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 based on what's what's better at what right now and maybe that'll consolidate as the mels mature. But We are very focused on we want our classes 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 We believe there's going to be a lot more competition coming than I think that we've than we've faced. than we face 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. first ourur 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 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 here I think twenty seventeen or twenty eighteen and myself in My editor, we had a long conversation with Mark Zuckerberg about some te related thing or a new launch at Facebook. toowwards 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 U like a pair of glasses And I was like, oh that's 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 and I guess what we're seeing today, the devices that work and are good and people enjoy using probablyably like an outgrowth of the metaverse and the oculus work here, but also Not just like let's try this. Like to me, it seems like it's been kind of core for almost a decade here 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 Aculus, 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 big vision. Marx had credible conviction. that this is something that was going to be critical and that we were going to invest in the space. even when, you know, we 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, a certain piece of technology didn't hit, um the progress that we were hoping to at various stages. E through that, we really continue to invest even when you know, there there were reasonable times to put doubt in it. I think we're glad, certainly glad that we did But it really took a lot of conviction. I give a lot of credit to Mark also to Baz for having A lot of conviction in what we're doing. So speaking of Bz, I was listening to you on the Bz to the Future podcast. and The ambition And to me it's pretty interesting because You talked about how, I think it was the O'rion glasses, which have the screen in them, which are not publicly available yet U 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 they felt like a pair of glasses could replace a phone. And so I am curious because you know 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 So is the ambition here to replace the phone I I think the emission 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 number advice is sold and used and let me it's They're ubiitrous for all kinds of things. I think wearables should be similar. I mean, we're expecting them to be uiqu at some point, we think that They'll be ubiquitously used by people providing a ton of value. That doesn't mean phones are going to go away. But I think you'll see wearables be used for some of the things that you do on phones today and a bunch of things that you don't use phones for today. I mean there's certain 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 behavi. Pe do. people do not a normal thing. I might be one of those people at times, but I don't see I might be guilty. I don't see if you're guil. Whereas with a wearable, it's a pretty natural behavior. 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' eat that mushroom Um That's important or do we eat that mushroom Also, you shouldn't be randomly eating a mroom that's in front of you, butre, we're trying to give adicever we can And so 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 could do with it. I mean, we didn't show in there It is a bad example. I'll use it anyway because of the time we're in the year We 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. I guess to get her around me, I can put it right there and watch the tournament games Also thereling tourn the NCLA wrestling tournaments at the same time and My alma mater Stanford did great in that too. so that's another thing you watch What is your facial recognition plans? There was a New York Times article talked about this feature called name tag. The Tes said it would let wears of the smart glasses identify people and get information about them. be a Meta' artificial intelligence assistance I saw the article, I'm familiar with the one that you' mentioning. I mean it's worth noting just out of the gate, you, we do not have a feature that's launched that it 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. I mean we hear, you know, we hear from our Our blind and low vision community that they wish they knew who was in front of them Um who was walking by We hear from Um people who go to conferences and events, it would be It's great to be, you know, you're going there to meet people. It wouldd 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 ks 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. But 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 be making sure that Um, 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're probably gonna stop wearing. They're not worth anything. Yeah And so we've got to be really conscious of that. And with each feature that we're looking at, that's something that we're going to have to be conscious of as we go. So this is one of the things that has come up. It's's one of the trickier 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 Um communities that the blind liivision community, especially you see versions of that I think Microsoft has an app that you can use for that We don't have something ready to lunch. We don't have something lunched. It's just one of the things that we're thinking about U Well, first of all, I'll say this. you know I think a year and a half ago, I was at Nilandrbo's house in Uuma, Arizona. He's the first neurling patient And he's paralyzed and can use computers thanks to Nurlink. So I think that's one of the more underappreciated parts of wearables or even brand compputer 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 you do with voice unlike an echo And then You know, I started playing video games again. He played a video game against me and he beat me, and that's And that's amazing. But I definitely I definitely sort of Privacy concerns and obviously you're aware of them I see why people would not want to live in a world where someomebody can where a device that can identify me 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 It 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 Um So I The idea of a name tag is like is 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 coworker 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 common behavior Um Similarly, like where where get knowing someone's name is most useful is I've met you You've told me your name I just cannot remember it. It could be it's a new meeting I'm in. We're meeting for the first time. We just went around the table of ten people And I got nine out of ten in my head and I'm missing the tenth U 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. If only there was an app that would allow me to maybe add you as a friend and We could connect that way Um you know, it's this is a time of the AI should help. I can think of some apps like that, but I can't remember the names of them. You might have tellld me It's not Ma. Okay, that's interesting. So just to conclude this part You said not launch, but that doesn't mean it's not loadered It's one of the ideas that I think comes up with every company in the space. It's 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 we wouldn't just wouldn't make any sense. So we can basically rule out this idea that I would like be able to you know take a look at random people on the street and know their name by looking at them through the glasses. Yeah I just don't think that's a feature that people want or really comfortable with. All right, it's good to getet your perspective on that Uh Let's talk a little bit about how this kind of changes the AI infrastructure story Uh You know, it's kind of interesting because we're going to a place where we have smaller models And u Some of them don't have to run them in you know, a multibillion dollar data center buildout. 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 buildout, 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 Well, the So the serervers and data centers that companies are building out Ma 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 You know, 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 sort of agentically help you with tasks U the former, I think the model training, I think is going to consistently run in data centers On where inference is served Um 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 know, you've used apps on your phone and the more things are loocal. 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 whether Whatever assant you're using right now You know, a lot of those fees are because it costs real money to be u serving you And usage caps, you wouldn't have that if you used that totally. model device. Yeah. And you know, you know a lot of that cost goes into power right now. and if it's on your device, you know, you're on the hook for charging your device and you know whatever power it runs Um And so I think you're going to see like there's certainly a lot of reasons Oh, andri privacy is the other obvious one. You know, you're in control of your data if it stays on your device. The Th things working in the opposite direction are Um Smaller models are not as capable certain tasks. and so The real math, you know 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? And if it performs well, I think There's a lot of incentive to have it run locally for everyone for the person using it 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 I think I want to end on the story of how this integration of AI into the RayN Medas came about because initially they were 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 Band Malasses, you know, we they were the second device that we were lach, the second version of Raybands that we werere launching with SLOL Exotica And it was one of the most heavily debated U devices that we were working on because it was 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 And so' like, I don't know, is it worth doing or should we just go straight to the display glasses? And were under development at the time, which were already multiple multiple versions of them were already under development at the time. And Then AI GAI large language models took off. I don't know where. I do remember was on a it was a Saturday. I had my kid in 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 them and by that was a Saturday by Monday. We pivoted two hundred people on the team to be building AI for these glasses. The rest is history, although. I think the AI Uh 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 I would have given us a lot of the initial usageage and traction. The audio is across 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 that you feel good about and that people like to engage with I can imagine the kids in the back getting kind of restless and you' being like Listen Dadd's launing new category of device. We're going to have to relax. Yeah and fast forward two years. So number one question in my house is when there's going to be a kids 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 Band Medis U Then you have the Oakley Huston lifestyle. There is, I believe on your side here is the display glasses. That's the pair of glasses with a screen inside of them that are available for sale. How much do those cost? These are seven hundred ninety nine. Okay. Iningural band than I thought. And there's a band that you can use that takes your dural pulses to be able to Um control the screen and then there are these Rayen