AI Glasses Failed To Connect During Its Launch

Last 17 September, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled several new augmented reality glasses, including what he claimed to be the "first AI glasses with high resolution," a new US$ 799 version of its Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses that features a tiny screen that's viewable to the wearer.

But it didn't take long for the company's "MetaConnect 2025" keynote to descend into chaos. The social media giant's demos repeatedly failed, leading to awkward stares, deafening silences, and muted laughter.

The poor showing painfully demonstrates that the tech is far from ready, even as companies continue to shove AI into every aspect of our daily lives.

The stakes are high. Meta is spending tens of billions of dollars to build out infrastructure and hire industry-leading staff to support AI. Zuckerberg has also repeatedly doubled down on smart glasses being the future of the company, as well as AI-powered "superintelligence" as a whole.

"This is one of those special moments where we get to show you something we've poured our lives into," he told the crowd at this week's event.

Yet getting the tech to work on stage in front of a huge crowd proved too much, demonstrating once again that there's still a glaring gap between the AI industry's breathless promises and cold, hard reality.

According to Zuckerberg's vision of the near future, wearers of Meta's glasses can converse with an AI chatbot to tell them what they're looking at — or how to do things, like coaching on how to cook a dish.

"Let's try it! It's not something I've made before," food content creator Jack Mancuso told Zuckerberg enthusiastically, after the CEO challenged him to make a steak sauce with the help of a new feature called "Live AI."

"Can you help me create a Korean-inspired steak sauce?" Mancuso asked his glasses.

"What do I do first?" Mancuso interjected after the robotic voice started making suggestions.

"What do I do first?" the influencer repeated after several seconds of total silence that followed.

"You already combined the base ingredients," the AI told Mancuso, who was standing in front of an empty glass bowl that he hadn't touched yet.

A separate attempt by Zuckerberg to make a video call with his glasses ended with him awkwardly trying to explain why it wasn't working.

"This is, uh... it happens," the CEO stammered.

"Let's try it again, I keep messing this up," he added.