"AI entrance into the post-intelligent era" explodes in sales! Meta (META.US) smart glasses in high demand in the United States, urgently halts global expansion plans.

Facebook's parent company Meta Platforms (META.US) stated in a recent blog post that, due to inventory constraints and unprecedented strong demand in the US market, the company is significantly delaying the international expansion of its "Ray-Ban Display" AI smart glasses. With the emergence of ChatGPT triggering a global AI wave, Meta led by Mark Zuckerberg is attempting to comprehensively integrate the AI software and hardware ecosystem to become a leader in AI applications centered around AI models, intelligent bodies, and AR+AI smart glasses. Zuckerberg is doubling down on smart glasses as the entry point to the "post-smartphone era" of AI, planning to seamlessly integrate advanced AI models with intelligent wearable devices and challenge Apple Inc.'s dominant position in the broad consumer electronics field including the iPhone and lightweight wearable devices in the "post-smartphone era." Undoubtedly, the "Ray-Ban Display" AI smart glasses with a miniature screen have become another milestone in Meta's grand vision for truly "Augmented Reality (AR) + AI" smart glasses. The new description of the "post-smartphone era" mainly emphasizes trends, describing a time when smartphone demand is slowing down and the penetration rate of new wearable consumer devices carrying AI models, such as AI smart glasses, is rapidly increasing. It highlights the transition from smartphones being the core electronic interaction center to AI assistants needing a more personal, real-time, and low-friction entry point; smart glasses (especially those with cameras/microphones, and even displays) naturally adapt to "seeing what you see, hearing what you hear, and providing prompts/answers at all times." In a market manifesto in the second half of last year, Zuckerberg outlined his concept of "Personal Superintelligence." This concept includes AR+AI smart glasses that can "see, hear, and interact deeply with users around the clock," potentially replacing smartphones as the primary gateway to an AI-based digital world. Ray-Ban Display, a hit in the US since its launch "Since the official launch of the product last fall, we have seen overwhelming purchase interest, and as a result, the product waiting list now extends to 2026. Due to this unprecedented demand in the US market and limited inventory, we have decided to postpone the planned international expansion to the UK, France, Italy, and Canada originally scheduled for early 2026. We will continue to focus on fulfilling orders in the US market while reevaluating our strategy for international supply availability," Meta's latest blog post shows. Meta's parent company Facebook has been working with Ray-Ban manufacturer Luxottica on developing a series of smart glasses. Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg launched the Meta Ray-Ban Display AI smart glasses last September, priced at $799, and it became a hit across the US. These AI smart glasses are consumer electronics devices with camera and audio functions in the form of glasses frames resembling standard Ray-Ban frames but innovatively adding hands-free photo and video capture, open speakers, microphones, and fully integrated Meta's original AI assistant. The second generation of this AI smart glasses series features dual 12MP cameras for capturing photos and supporting up to 60-second 1080p video recording, with a visible recording indicator to alert those around you; it also uses open speakers and multiple microphone arrays for music playback, calls, and voice input, keeping environmental sounds audible. In addition, the body controls include an electronic touchpad at the temple for adjusting volume or playback through clicking and swiping and a physical shutter button for quick capture of photos or video clips. The more advanced "Meta Ray-Ban Display" version, compared to other AR+AI smart glasses, innovatively embeds a small full-color micro-display screen on the right lens (with a compact field of view), displaying AI responses, navigation cues, messages, and other visual prompts; it can also be paired with a wrist-worn Neural Band device that reads subtle muscle signals in the hand to enable micro-gesture control, allowing for more complex AR-style deep interactions within a relatively traditional glasses design. The Display + wristband gestures transition it from a wearable that "can take photos/has voice assistant" to a daily tool that "can view/respond/navigate without needing to pull out a phone": preview messages and social media content, walking navigation maps, real-time subtitles/translations, camera previews and zoom-ins all directly displayed on the lens and operable with the wristband. During CES 2026 which started on January 6, Meta also strengthened more productivity-oriented functions such as "prompter" and "EMG handwriting input," further increasing the usage scenarios beyond "non-smartphone settings." Compared to competitors in the smart glasses space, Meta's Ray-Ban Display not only meets the "mainstream glasses form + real display + real input" combination but also excels in providing "contextual information presentation" (navigation, messages, AI response cards) on the lens-display and discreet hand gestures for input/control through the Neural Band (wristband EMG muscle gestures), expanding to productivity use cases such as handwriting input and prompter flips. Smart glasses, potentially the best vehicle for artificial intelligence technology's edge In other significant developments in the AI smart glasses industry, Alphabet Inc. Class C's parent company Alphabet (GOOG.US) announced a deep partnership worth $150 million with Warby Parker (WRBY.US) last year. According to media reports, OpenAI, the developer of the popular AI application ChatGPT, is collaborating with Apple Inc. (AAPL.US) to develop an unprecedented style of AI smart glasses. With the rapid development of edge computing, 5G networks, and artificial intelligence technology, edge consumer electronics devices are increasingly capable of real-time data processing and seamless interaction with cloud AI models. This enables smart glasses to not only collect real-time environmental data (such as visual, auditory, and location information) but also to link with cloud AI models through local preliminary processing, achieving real-time generative AI applications. Some complex AI workloads are completed in the cloud AI computing system, while tasks requiring ultra-fast real-time or sensitive processing are handled locally, such as speech interactions, real-time translations, augmented reality navigation, and contextually overlaid information. The upgraded Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses in 2024 can be considered the first series of AI smart glasses that have sparked consumer buying trends in the market, equipped with SoC with integrated NPU, advanced cameras, and audio components. These technologies enable core intelligent functions such as photo/video capture and audio playback, while leveraging on-device AI algorithms, edge AI based on smartphones and other consumer electronics, and Llama cloud AI models to support a wide range of applications. Counterpoint indicates that with the global popularity of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, an unprecedented wave of AI smart glasses has emerged, from reference design products provided by supply chain companies to commercial products launched by glasses brand manufacturers, all starting to appear after the end of 2024. The organization predicts that as leading smartphone companies release their first AI smart glasses in 2025, more smart consumer electronics companies may enter the market in 2025 and 2026. Counterpoint anticipates that the global overall smart glasses market will achieve a 60% year-on-year growth in 2025 and maintain a compound annual growth rate of over 60% from 2025 to 2029. A data report from Counterpoint shows that global smart glasses shipments in 2024 increased by 210% compared to the previous year, and in the first half of 2025, international smart glasses market shipments increased by 110% compared to the same period last year. The more significant point is that in the first half of 2025, AI smart glasses accounted for approximately 78% of the overall shipments of smart glasses products worldwide, and the growth rate in this subcategory of AI smart glasses was even more significant (described as a "strong growth level of over 250% year-on-year"), reflecting the market's shift from "audio glasses for listening to music/making calls" to "shooting + multimodal perception + edge AI assistant" AI smart glasses.