Meta to preview first true AR glasses at Connect conference
AI updates include celebrity voices for Meta39;s chatbot
First commercial AR glasses expected to ship in 2027, source says

Sept 25 Reuters Facebook owner Meta prepared on Wednesday to kick off its annual Connect conference at its California headquarters, where it is expected to preview its first augmented reality glasses and announce updates to its existing virtual reality and artificial intelligence products.

Among those AI updates is an audio upgrade offering users the option to select a voice for Meta39;s ChatGPTlike chatbot, including the ability to make it sound like celebrities including Judi Dench and John Cena, Reuters reported on Monday.

The augmented reality reveal is a long time in the making for Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, who positioned AR technology as a sort of magnum opus when he first pivoted the worlds biggest social media company toward building immersive metaverse systems in 2021.

However, Meta has struggled to overcome technical challenges with its AR project since then, prompting the head of the companys metaverseoriented Reality Labs division to acknowledge last year that a product it could viably bring to market was still a few years away a few, to put it lightly.

The company has been plowing tens of billions of dollars into its investments in artificial intelligence, augmented reality and other metaverse technologies, driving up its capital expense forecast for 2024 to…