Tech companies are betting that people will connect with AI using something other than smartphones. Meta is going all-in on glasses, after launching its new AI agent Muse.

Transcript

AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:

Most of us use the internet and artificial intelligence on smartphones, but companies are scrambling to find the next big device - one that will be easier and more intuitive to use as AI gets smarter and can do more things. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, thinks the answer is eyeglasses. And NPR's John Ruwitch visited the Meta campus for a look.

JOHN RUWITCH, BYLINE: At the company's recent annual developer summit, CEO Mark Zuckerberg did not talk about Meta's flagship social media platforms once. Instead, it was AI and hardware.

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MARK ZUCKERBERG: We have shifted our focus to building the best devices for personal superintelligence.

RUWITCH: Earlier this month, the company launched Muse, an AI app that can do tasks for users like track prices and buy things, draft emails and plan vacations. The app shot to No. 1 on Apple's App Store. The company's been selling smart glasses for over a decade, and now an AI strategy is coming into focus as Meta connects Muse to its glasses.

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ZUCKERBERG: They're the only form factor that lets you - let your Muse see what you see, hear what you hear, talk to you throughout the day and display information right in your vision, eventually.

RUWITCH: The glasses look pretty much like regular glasses. Meta has partnerships with Ray-Ban and Oakley, and you interact with them by talking, which is how you would chat with Muse. They can also snap pictures and take videos, although Meta recently launched a camera-free version. Beth Murray works on social impact programs at Meta.

BETH MURRAY: We don't believe that humans were designed to spend their lives staring into little black boxes all day.

RUWITCH: She means smartphones. Glasses are hands-free and keep people's eyes up for interactions with the real world. But they've also been problematic. Meta has faced lawsuits over glasses cameras catching people doing things they don't want photographed or filmed. The new camera-free version of glasses is Meta's nod toward privacy and surveillance concerns.

Still, Meta is determined to expand the market. It says over a hundred glasses frames will be available by the end of the year, and they think glasses can be useful in work settings. Kevin Lang runs a company called Agerpoint that received a grant from Meta to give out glasses to farmers, where they could help do things like identify crop diseases.

KEVIN LANG: A lot of the times the folks that are walking through the field and doing the field work, they're not trained agronomists. They don't know what to look for. So how can we kind of augment them with this expertise using this really natural form factor of glasses?

RUWITCH: Smartphones could do the same thing, sending images to crop experts or tapping AI for advice. But glasses?

LANG: The glasses really provide this hands-free experience that really fit into the natural rhythms of farming.

RUWITCH: Other players in tech are also spending on R&D to come up with the next big piece of AI-enabled hardware - something easy to adopt, maybe a watch, earbuds or a smart speaker. Nick Sutrich covers the world of smart glasses for Android Central, an online tech news site. He sees why Meta would want to make the AI software and the gadget.

NICK SUTRICH: Going the hardware route and being the next Apple or Google or whatever makes a lot of sense for them.

RUWITCH: And he says they seem to be on the right track with the glasses, a new virtual reality headset that looks like glasses and more.

SUTRICH: I do think Meta is leading the way in several different categories, probably mainly because they have a ton of disposable income in this regard. And so they're sort of shooting everything at the wall and seeing what sticks and what people adopt.

RUWITCH: To that end, Zuckerberg wrapped up his speech at the conference with a surprise that highlights that nobody really knows what form factor is going to work. He introduced an all-new AI device that the company hopes to ship for the holidays, a voice-controlled pendant called Muse Charm. If you don't want AI in your glasses, maybe you'll want it on your key chain.

John Ruwitch, NPR News, Menlo Park, California.

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