Mark Zuckerberg believes that the era of standard, non-digital eyewear is coming to an end.
During Meta’s Q4 2025 earnings call on Wednesday, the CEO laid out an aggressive vision for the company’s hardware division. Moving past the expensive and often criticized focus on the metaverse, Zuckerberg indicated that Meta is now doubling down on AI wearables. His central thesis is simple: smart glasses are about to have their “smartphone moment.”
Zuckerberg told investors that “Billions of people wear glasses or contacts for vision correction. And I think that we’re at a moment similar to when smartphones arrived, and it was clearly only a matter of time until all those flip phones became smartphones. It’s hard to imagine a world in several years where most glasses that people wear aren’t AI glasses.”
The “Flip Phone” Transition
Zuckerberg is comparing the transition to smart glasses with the death of the flip phone. He sees AI integration not as a niche feature for tech enthusiasts. But as an eventual standard for anyone who needs vision correction.
To back this up, he pointed to recent hardware performance. Sales of Meta’s smart glasses have reportedly tripled over the last year. Zuckerberg claimed they are currently “some of the fastest growing consumer electronics in history.”
While Meta has spent years burning cash on Reality Labs projects, this shift signals a more tangible strategy: putting AI assistants directly on your face compared to trying to transport you into a virtual world.
The Industry Follows Suit
It is easy to be skeptical of Zuckerberg’s forecasting. This is, after all, the same executive who bet the company’s name on the metaverse, a future of legless avatars and virtual meetings that failed to materialize as predicted.
However, unlike the lonely push for the metaverse, Meta is not acting alone this time. The industry’s biggest players are quietly moving their capital toward the same conclusion.
- Google: Following a $150 million deal with Warby Parker, Google is expected to launch a new line of smart glasses later this year.
- Apple: Bloomberg reports that Apple is shifting staff away from a lighter version of the Vision Pro headset to focus on smart glasses, with a potential unveiling in the next year or two. The company is also rumored to be developing an AirTag-sized AI device.
- Snap: Recently, Snap announced it would spin its AR “Specs” division into a new subsidiary to improve operational focus.
Despite the incoming competition, Meta is currently leading this new trend. The company already has two generations on sale. Plus recently partnered with Oakley for smart glasses designed for exercise that users can connect with their Garmin device Strava app. This was the first smart glasses from Meta which is not creators focused.
While the “Humane AI pin” served as a cautionary tale for wearable AI earlier this decade, the form factor of glasses remains a safer bet. If Zuckerberg is right, the standard glasses on your face right now might soon look as antiquated just like the Motorola Razr did back in 2008.
