Meta is putting its Muse AI agent on every pair of smart glasses it ships, the company said at Meta Connect 2026 on September 23. Alongside the software push, Meta launched a camera-free Ray-Ban Meta Audio Glasses line starting at $349, refreshed the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3 at $449, and expanded its off-brand Meta Glasses with new celebrity editions from Kylie Jenner and Blackpink's Lisa at $399.
Muse, Meta's personal AI agent that launched a couple of weeks before Connect, will be activated on the glasses with a wake word and handle tasks like guiding a workout, logging meals, or shopping for products the wearer is looking at. Meta VP of wearables Alex Himel said the assistant will run across the entire hardware lineup, including the audio-only glasses, the Gen 3 Ray-Bans, the entry-level Meta Glasses starting at $249, and the $69-gram Meta Ray-Ban Display.
The audio-only Ray-Bans are the more surprising piece of hardware. They weigh 43 grams, compared with roughly 50 grams for the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 and 69 grams for the Meta Ray-Ban Display, and Meta says the battery lasts about 12 hours per charge without a power-hungry camera to feed. They come in two frame styles, Clubmaster and Burbank, across 23 color and lens combinations.
“Three years ago, it wasn't clear if AI glasses were going to be a thing. Back then, every other company was backing out of the space.”— Alex Himel, Meta VP of wearables
Key facts
- 01Meta's Muse agent is coming to every smart glasses model Meta makes, activated by voice for tasks like workouts, meal logging, and shopping.
- 02Ray-Ban Meta Audio Glasses drop the camera entirely, weigh 43 grams, run 12 hours per charge, and start at $349.
- 03Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3 gains a sixth microphone, nine hours of battery, and 27 color and lens combinations at a $449 starting price, up from $379.
- 04A new FDA-cleared Hearing Enhancement feature launches later this year for $149 as an add-on or with a Meta One subscription.
- 05Kylie Jenner and Blackpink's Lisa each anchor $399 celebrity Meta Glasses editions aimed at broadening the buyer base beyond male Wayfarer wearers.
Himel framed the decision as a design choice, not a response to the ongoing public debate around camera-equipped wearables. Removing the cameras, he said, let Meta rearchitect the front frame and pull out electronics, freeing up room for thinner arms, adjustable hinges, and a wider prescription range matching the Ray-Ban Meta Optics lineup. The audio-only glasses can take calls, play podcasts and music, and talk to Meta AI. That is the entire feature set.
The Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3, by contrast, keeps the camera and adds incremental upgrades: six microphones instead of five, nine hours of battery instead of eight, adjustable temple arms, and Dolby Atmos spatial audio capture. The price rose to $449 from $379 last year. There are 27 color and lens combinations plus three seasonal options, and two new frame styles, an aviator and a geometric cat-eye called Zena.
On the entry-level Meta Glasses side, Meta added two more styles, Capri and Nova, and leaned into celebrity collaborations. An ivory Kylie Jenner edition and a pink-lensed Lisa edition both list at $399, while non-celebrity Meta Glasses start at $249. Himel said the earlier Meta Glasses Starfire collaboration with Jenner drew a younger and more female audience, a demographic the flagship Wayfarer and Oakley frames tend to underindex on.
Accessibility is a real part of the pitch. Meta is rolling out an FDA-cleared Hearing Enhancement feature later this year, priced at $149 as a one-time add-on for compatible glasses or bundled with a Meta One subscription, and it is FSA and HSA eligible. Meta AI will also give more context-rich answers when users ask what they are looking at, which the company positions as useful for blind and low-vision wearers. A new audio-balance control lets users shift smart-glasses volume fully to one ear.
The Meta Ray-Ban Display picks up a set of software updates too, including a Hologram feature that infers a wearer's facial expression from voice for video calls, rolling out in early access on WhatsApp for US users later this fall. Starting later this month, US and Canada users can request cycling or transit directions by voice, and walking directions will reference landmarks the glasses detect rather than street signs.
On the privacy front, Meta is extending the private processing pipeline it uses on WhatsApp to its wearables. Himel said the server-based system keeps user data inaccessible to Meta and third parties when end-to-end encryption is not possible or on-device compute is not powerful enough. Whether that quiets the broader pushback against camera-equipped smart glasses is another question — the private-processing update sits alongside a second, unrelated opt-out, and neither directly addresses the recording concerns that dominated debate over the past summer.
Muse in the glasses is Meta's most consequential move here. Voice-driven agent workflows are the same bet OpenAI made this month with its ChatGPT mobile app, and both companies are converging on the idea that the phone screen is not where AI assistants are best used. Meta owns the hardware distribution — the Ray-Ban Meta lineup is now the closest thing to a mainstream consumer AI device on the market — and pairing that with an agent that shops, plans, and remembers context turns each pair of glasses into a data pipeline as much as a product. The audio-only SKU is a hedge against the coming regulatory and social pressure on always-on cameras; Muse is the reason the hedge still pays off.
Working on something we should cover, or seeing a story we missed? Send leads, documents, or feedback to hello@aichatdaily.com. For sensitive tips, see our secure tips page for Signal and PGP options.
Spotted an error? Email hello@aichatdaily.com with the URL and the issue, or read our full corrections policy.
