Hey Meta, explain this piece.
After putting on the AI smart glasses Ray-Ban Meta, which Meta, Facebook's parent company, recently launched officially in Korea, I looked at a painting hanging on the wall and said this. After a brief 2–3 seconds of silence, the reply came: "This work is 'The Starry Night,' painted in 1889 by Dutch Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh."
Next, I looked at a sign for a travel destination written in French and asked what it said, and asked it to estimate the calories of the food on the plate. I also asked it to explain what a book was about just by looking at the cover. There was no need to pull out a smartphone to take a photo and ask an AI app to translate, or to search separately. When I asked about the scene in front of me while wearing the glasses, the camera recognized it, and the AI analyzed it and provided the information I wanted in real time.
Meta Korea introduced the AI glasses Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta on the 4th at Meta Korea's office in Gangnam District, Seoul, developed in partnership with global eyewear maker EssilorLuxottica. The product lineup has already sold more than 9 million units between 2023 and 2025 in overseas markets including the United States, and sales in Korea officially began on the 25th of last month.
As the Generative AI race expands beyond chatbots, search, and smartphones to wearable devices, Meta is focusing on smart glasses as a next-generation AI device that could replace smartphones. Earlier, Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's chief executive officer, said smart glasses will be a key device to realize the company's vision of "Personal Superintelligence for everyone."
Kim Jin-a, head of Meta Korea, said, "Glasses are the most natural and optimized way to use AI," adding, "They can grasp a user's situation and context in real time, and because you stay connected to the world and focus on the moment, they are a more suitable form factor than smartphones for making deep use of AI."
Kim described the superintelligence as defined by Meta as "not just answering questions, but acting like a smart assistant that deeply understands the user and identifies personal goals and interests to carry out necessary tasks in advance."
The Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta tried on at the site that day felt similar to regular sunglasses. Ray-Ban Meta was somewhat heavier than lightweight acetate glasses used daily, but not uncomfortable even for long wear, while Oakley Meta, designed for sports, was light enough not to press on the bridge of the nose.
The biggest advantage is the design. Despite built-in cameras, microphones, and speakers, the AI glasses look almost identical to Ray-Ban and Oakley's signature designs, minimizing the peculiar otherness of wearable devices. By hiding the technology in the temples and frames, they are closer to Ray-Ban and Oakley sunglasses enhanced with useful AI features than to an overt AI device.
When you put on the AI glasses, you hear a ding next to your ear, and saying "Hey Meta" lets you ask questions by voice to get information or take photos or videos. The built-in 12-megapixel ultrawide camera recognizes what the user is looking at, and Meta AI analyzes it to respond. The Meta AI embedded in the glasses runs on Muse Spark, Meta's latest AI model that understands voice and images in depth.
You can adjust the volume by swiping forward and back on the surface of the right temple, and tap lightly to play music or take a photo. Because answers are delivered through speakers built into the temples, you can hear them relatively clearly without blocking your ears with earbuds.
The overall user experience was smooth, but in some demo zones the AI's hallmark "hallucinations (an error in which AI convincingly makes up information that is not true or does not exist)" also appeared. When asked to provide calories while looking at food on a dining table, the device said, "This food appears to be a model. Models have no calories." The bread and salad on the plate were not models but real food, and only the boiled egg was a model, yet the AI recognized the whole thing as a model.
Meta said it will continue to improve device performance and Korean-language services. Kim said, "As AI technology advances, AI glasses will evolve to become increasingly smarter."
Meta also presented a three-stage roadmap for the evolution of AI smart glasses. The current product is stage one, equipped with a camera and audio—basically "AI with eyes and ears." Stage two adds a display to the lenses, showing needed information on-screen in real time in the form of captions, images, and maps. Meta Ray-Ban Display, released in the United States last year, is a stage-two product.
The final stage is Augmented Reality (AR)-based AI smart glasses, in which AI understands the user's surroundings and uses holograms to realize the virtual and the real together.
Kim said, "We are now entering the dawn of an era of experiencing AI within glasses," adding, "I hope stage-two and stage-three AI glasses products will be launched in Korea in the not-too-distant future."
Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta, launched in Korea on the 25th of last month, are available at domestic department stores, duty-free shops, and opticians. Both products start at 690,000 won. Like wireless earbuds, the glasses can be charged in a glasses case, and a single charge lasts about eight hours.