Mark Zuckerberg says a future without smart glasses is ‘hard to imagine’

Mark Zuckerberg outlined his long-term vision for Meta’s AI-powered smart glasses business during the company’s Q4 2025 earnings call on Wednesday.

Following Meta’s gradual pullback from heavy metaverse investments within Reality Labs, the company is now placing increased emphasis on AI wearables and the development of its own artificial intelligence models.

“Billions of people wear glasses or contacts for vision correction,” Zuckerberg said on the call. “And I think that we’re at a moment similar to when smartphones arrived, and it was clearly only a matter of time until all those flip phones became smartphones. It’s hard to imagine a world in several years where most glasses that people wear aren’t AI glasses.”

Zuckerberg added that sales of Meta’s smart glasses have tripled over the past year, describing them as “some of the fastest growing consumer electronics in history.”

That optimism comes with context. Zuckerberg has previously made bold predictions about consumer technology — including his belief that people would work, socialise, and spend significant time inside the metaverse — a vision that ultimately failed to gain broad adoption.

Still, judging by how major technology companies are directing their investments, AI-powered glasses appear to be gaining real momentum, even if they never reach the same scale or cultural impact as smartphones.

Several of the industry’s most prominent players are now making moves in the space. Google is expected to launch its own line of smart glasses later this year, following a reported $150 million partnership with Warby Parker. Apple is also said to be working on smart glasses, with Bloomberg reporting that some employees have been reassigned from efforts to develop a lighter version of the Vision Pro headset.

Meanwhile, Snap announced Tuesday that it will spin off its augmented reality glasses, Specs, into a standalone subsidiary. The move is intended to give the project greater operational focus and strategic alignment.

Even OpenAI, which has yet to release consumer hardware, is exploring AI wearables. However, its efforts appear to be centred on products such as AI pins or earbuds rather than glasses. Apple is also rumoured to be developing a compact, AirTag-sized AI device, though observers have expressed hope that such products fare better than the short-lived Humane AI Pin.

For now, Meta remains the most aggressive player in bringing smart glasses to market. The company already sells multiple models, including Oakley-branded smart glasses designed for exercise. That category, in particular, is shaping up to be one of the most compelling early use cases for AI-powered eyewear.

While it remains unclear whether smart glasses will become as ubiquitous as smartphones, Zuckerberg’s comments underscore Meta’s belief that AI wearables represent a central pillar of its future consumer technology strategy.