Meta introduces an artificial intelligence assistant and streaming glasses through Facebook

MENLO PARK, Calif. (Reuters) – Meta Platform Inc ( META.O ) CEO Mark Zuckerberg launched new artificial intelligence products for consumers on Wednesday, including robots that create realistic images and smart glasses that answer questions, as well as a virtual reality product . Headset improvements. default.

Describing the products as a fusion of the virtual and real worlds, Zuckerberg emphasized that part of Matter’s offering is low-cost or free artificial intelligence that can be integrated into everyday activities. Meta’s Quest is a bestseller in the emerging virtual reality space, and company executives call it the best value in the industry, a nod to the upcoming release of Apple’s pricier headset.

Speaking in a central courtyard at Meta’s sprawling Silicon Valley campus, Zuckerberg said a new generation of Meta Ray-Ban ( ESLX.PA ) smart glasses will begin shipping on Oct. 17, priced at $299.

The device will have a new meta-AI assistant and will be able to live stream what the user sees directly to Facebook and Instagram, a step up from the previous generation’s photo-taking capabilities.

Zuckerberg spoke at the MetaConnect conference, the social media company’s biggest event of the year and its first in-person conference since the pandemic began.

He also said that Quest’s latest mixed reality headset will begin shipping on October 10, introducing the company’s first consumer-focused generative AI products. Next up is a chatbot called Meta AI that can generate text replies and photorealistic images.

“Sometimes we innovate by revealing something that’s never been seen before,” Zuckerberg said. “But sometimes we innovate by taking something great but very expensive and making it affordable or even free.”

Meta AI will be integrated into smart glasses as an assistant and will begin its beta phase in the US. A software update planned for next year will give the assistant the ability to recognize places and things people see, as well as perform language translation.

Meta developed Meta AI using a custom model based on the powerful Llama 2 language model, which the company released for general commercial use in July. Zuckerberg said the chatbot will have access to real-time information through a partnership with Microsoft’s Bing search engine.

In an interview with Reuters, Nick Clegg, Meta’s head of global affairs, said the company had taken steps to filter out personal details from the data used to train the model and had also introduced restrictions on the generation of the tool, such as banning the creation of Photorealistic representation of images. From public figures.

“We tried to exclude records that contained a large percentage of personal information,” Clegg said, citing LinkedIn as an example of a site whose content was intentionally underutilized.

Custom AI robots

Meta also announced that it is building a platform that developers and regular people alike can use to create their own custom AI bots that will have profiles on Instagram and Facebook and eventually appear as avatars in the Metaverse.

To demonstrate the tool’s capabilities, Meta created a group of 28 chatbots with different personalities, designed with the voices of celebrities such as Charlie D’Amelio, Snoop Dogg and Tom Brady, according to a company blog post.

The features seem aimed at enhancing existing apps and devices rather than developing new ad space or other revenue streams.

“I don’t expect Mater’s AI products to be monetized for some time, and I think ultimately it will be only indirectly,” said Bob O’Donnell. “They seem more interested in building a platform that other developers will use.”, senior analyst at Technology Research.

Zuckerberg also said Wednesday that Xbox cloud gaming will come to Quest in December.

Meta first announced the Quest 3 headset in the summer, while Apple introduced the Vision Pro headset, a high-end product priced at $3,500.

Starting at $500, the Quest 3 features the same mixed reality technology first introduced last year in Meta’s more expensive Quest Pro, which shows the wearer a video feed of the real world around them.

Today’s announcements reflect how Zuckerberg plans to address this year’s shift in investor enthusiasm toward artificial intelligence through augmented and virtual reality technologies.

The event was at stake as investors criticized Facebook and Instagram’s parent company Metaverse last year for heavy spending, which led Zuckerberg to lay off tens of thousands of employees to continue funding his vision.

Developers are seen evaluating the apps they can create for the latest Meta device. Meanwhile, investors were looking for signs of whether a gamble that has seen the company lose more than $40 billion through 2021 could pay off.

Our values: Thomson Reuters Trust Policy.