Meta has spent billions to stay competitive with artificial intelligence, but the tech giant faces growing pushback as CEO Mark Zuckerberg prepares to announce new products built for the AI era on Wednesday
The company will kick off its annual Connect conference from its Menlo Park headquarters at 4:00 pm PT (2300 GMT) Wednesday, and Zuckerberg will deliver a keynote address to the developer-focused event
Earlier this month the social media giant launched Muse, its first agentic app for consumers which is designed to perform tasks on behalf of humans, like a digital personal assistant
After a user connects various personal accounts — whether financial, health-related or shopping — they can ask Meta to perform tasks like signing up for services, booking appointments and making calls
Amazon blocked Meta this week from using AI bots to shop for users automatically, while other businesses including Instacart, Shopify and Expedia have announced partnerships to integrate their services into Muse
The Muse agent is built on Meta’s own AI models and is designed to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude
The company had its first pair of interactive smart glasses in 2021, about a year before OpenAI sparked a global AI frenzy with its release of ChatGPT, and since then the devices have become more and more advanced
Last year, Meta unveiled a pair of augmented reality “display” glasses which project images on the lenses
And earlier this year, the company released self-branded AI glasses, apart from its partnership with eyewear manufacturer EssilorLuxottica, which produces multiple Ray-Ban-branded Meta glasses
However, their novelty quickly became clouded by privacy concerns, with critics dubbing the eyewear as “pervert glasses”
At last year’s Connect, Meta’s chief product officer Chris Cox brushed aside such concerns and told news outlets, including AFP, that “social norms” would form around the use of smart glasses
More recently, Meta has said a recording indicator light would always be visible to people nearby, and that tampering with the indicator light would disable the camera
The company is reportedly working on a new pair of audio-only glasses, and has also been rumored to be developing a new generation of mixed reality glasses
Meta has also been battling children’s safety and privacy issues around the world
In August, the company settled a lawsuit with dozens of attorneys generals in the US who accused Meta of violating state and federal laws regarding consumer protections and children’s online privacy
As part of the settlement, Meta agreed to pay up to $18 billion in fines and enact restrictions for teenagers
Meta faces social media restrictions and bans for younger users around the world, as well as thousands of potential personal injury lawsuits in the US that are still making their way through state courts