Meta’s Smart Glasses PR Cleanup Campaign Is in Full Swing

As expected, Meta hopped straight into discussing new smart glasses at this year’s Connect and unveiled a new generation of Ray-Ban AI glasses (we’re on three now, believe it or not), as well as a boatload of new styles and frames for its first-party smart glasses. You didn’t have to be an oracle to see that one coming, though. Meta is the biggest player in the smart glasses space, and it’s been steadily expanding its catalog year over year. Where this year’s Connect differed from previous years was in how Meta angled its smart glasses, and to me, that approach was proof of one thing: Meta is finally feeling the heat. Perhaps the biggest indicator that Meta’s approach to smart glasses is shifting is Ray-Ban Audio, which are the company’s first pair of smart glasses without a camera. The decision to launch a pair of audio-only smart glasses now of all times is conspicuous. As Meta’s line of Ray-Ban and first-party smart glasses have risen in popularity, the backlash against them has become palpable—Meta’s smart glasses have a big audience and an even larger chorus of critics. This is one of Meta’s pairs of audio-only smart glasses—a first for the company since getting into the game. © James Pero / Gizmodo Smart glasses are getting flamed on huge stages by Lorde, they’re being banned in public and private spaces, and they’re increasingly a magnet for political discourse both in the U.S. and in Europe. The criticisms range, but many lead back to video capture: there are issues with how smart glasses can be used as a covert recording device, even despite safeguards like a capture LED that indicates to people when you’re recording, or fears over Meta’s reported plans to include facial recognition in its smart glasses. As the biggest player in the space, the spotlight is on Meta, and lots of the attention is not positive publicity. While Meta claims it’s been working on audio-only smart glasses for a while now, the decision to release a pair now, of all times, is pointed. Though the company would never say so explicitly, camera-less smart glasses bring down the heat. Without cameras, no one can accuse you of filming them discreetly, nor do you have to worry about content captured by your smart glasses being used by Meta for AI training. Meta’s audio-only smart glasses are a privacy measure, and they aren’t the only attempt to move the needle. Arguably a more direct address of smart glasses and privacy was Meta’s introduction of “Private Processing” on smart glasses (a feature previously introduced on WhatsApp), which is meant to protect your personal data through a mix of things like encryption, masking IP addresses, and the use of a “Confidential Virtual Machine,” where AI requests are processed. Meta says it can’t access queries and data in that container even if it wanted to. The idea here is that you can interact with Meta’s AI—computing that’s done in the cloud—without constantly logging your interactions on a server somewhere that’s accessible to Meta. This won’t affect anyone who encounters smart glasses externally, but for the people who own them, it’s an olive branch toward a more private experience. For context, users of Meta’s smart glasses have been swept up in privacy controversies as well following a report that third-party contractors hired by Meta were able to view sensitive data like nude photos and videos as a result of the company’s AI training program. While Meta hasn’t rolled out Private Processing on smart glasses yet, nor has it decided which features the technology would even wind up in, there’s an attention to privacy here that we’ve not seen previously—and it makes sense. Would you really want to (theoretically) walk around chatting with Meta’s Muse AI agent if it were storing that data somewhere that might be accessible to others? Some people might. Others might rule out the feature on principle. Meta is tapping high-profile celebrities as ambassadors for its products to neutralize public opinion on its smart glasses. © Meta There’s also the marketing of it all. Meta has already tapped Kylie Jenner to help try and make its smart glasses appealing to a general audience. A couple of months ago, Meta introduced its first-party Starfire glasses, which were designed in collaboration with Jenner and feature her heavily in the marketing. At Connect, Meta dipped back into that playbook to tap Blackpink’s Lisa, who also helped design a new pair. The decision to use celebrities makes sense—it’s a trick as old as time for marketing products. But the decision to use women specifically is even more interesting, especially because women have been on the receiving end of quite a bit of creepiness resulting from Meta’s smart glasses. The effect of showing women accepting smart glasses as a category could be a subtle way of trying to neutralize the “pervert” perception. If last year’s Connect was a coming-out party for Meta’s very lofty ambitions in the smart glasses space, this year felt like more of an adjustment of that flight path. It wasn’t so much about showing that Meta is a force in smart glasses; it was about assuring you that Meta is the force you want to choose. Whether that will actually take root with anyone on the fence about Meta’s smart glasses is another question entirely, but Meta sure seems intent on giving it a try, cute Muse avatar and all.