Meta Connect 2024: The 6 Biggest Announcements From a Crowded Keynote
While it didn’t start on time, it was still a fast-paced and news-making event when Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the stage at Meta Connect 2024 for the opening keynote. Zuck and co showed off a slew of AI tools, including new celebrity voices and live translation for Meta AI, new hardware in the form of the Quest 3S and a futuristic-looking AR glasses prototype, and AI updates for the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses.
You can read everything that was announced in our Meta Connect live blog, including some interesting quotes from our Editor-in-Chief Lance Ulanoff, who was at the event. Below, we share the six biggest things Meta revealed during the Connect keynote.
1. A first look at the prototype Orion AR glasses
The honor of the biggest surprise at Meta Connect goes to Mark Zuckerberg, who shows off his first fully holographic AR glasses, called Orion. They have the familiar shape of glasses, just like the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses, but a bit thicker.
There’s a lot of technology inside, including a new display architecture. These glasses are completely transparent and you operate them via a neural network-based hand gesture that requires a wristband.
In several demos we saw the Orion glasses being used for gaming and opening windows that would overlay whatever you were looking at. We also got a short clip of video calls with personal avatars.
Suffice it to say, the Orion prototypes were impressive, even from the pre-recorded demos and sizzle reel of people trying them out. People mentioned how light they were, and Mark Zuckerberg raved about the work that went into them. A magnesium frame is used to keep the glasses from being heavy — at least at this stage of development — and instead of glass lenses, they’re silicon carbide, which light is projected through for displays. They’re still a few years away, and Meta noted that it needs to bring the price down, though it will release early developer kits for a select few.
It’s been rumored for a while, but Meta has now made the Quest 3S official, official. It now sits as the entry-level model in the Quest mixed-reality headset range, and given its position, it has an affordable price to match, starting at just $299.99 / £289.99 for the 128GB model.
The Quest 3S has a similar overall build to the Quest 3 with a redesigned front end, most notably with the camera stack, but the goal is to deliver “high-quality mixed reality” to the masses at a lower price point. In our initial hands-on, the onboard Qualcomm processor was more than capable of running Horizon OS, making it a breeze to play games like Batman: Arkham Shadow and multitasking with multiple windows.
We can’t wait to spend more time with the Quest 3S, but in the meantime, read our hands-on Meta Quest 3S review for an attractive and affordable headset.
Meta announced some huge Meta AI updates at Meta Connect 2024, including the introduction of voice to its AI chatbot. But not just any voice, celebrities like John Cena, Keegan-Michael Key, and Kristen Bell. Now you can have realistic, human-like conversations with your smartphone using apps like Facebook, Instagram DM, WhatsApp, and Messenger. This brings Meta AI right up to speed with the other big AI companies like OpenAI, Google, and Apple, who are all introducing voice modes into their AI products.
While not quite as monumental as the Orion prototype, Meta announced a laundry list of updates to its Ray-Ban Smart Glasses. For one, they now offer hands-free access to pulling up your favorite songs, audiobooks, or even podcasts from services like Spotify or Audible. What’s more, instead of asking for a specific song, you can now ask for a Taylor Swift pop tune or perhaps a classic folk song. Again, Meta AI is aiming for more natural conversations.
In addition to song requests, these smart glasses will also be able to handle some language translation requests by the end of the year. You can look at something written in Spanish, French, or Italian and ask Meta AI to translate it. We tried this and it worked in a demo room. Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses will also bring visual reminders, lenses that can be turned into sunglasses more quickly, and Meta AI for videos. These are all set to arrive before 2025.
An incredible new AI translation tool for Instagram and Facebook Reels allows content creators to reach a wider audience thanks to automatic dubbing and lip-syncing. The AI feature is currently being tested in the US and Latin America, but Meta hopes to expand these translation tools to more languages in the future.
Imagine a world where you can watch video content from around the world and listen to it in your language, without needing subtitles. This could be a revolutionary new AI feature for anyone watching video content on Instagram or Facebook.
6. AI image generation on Facebook and Instagram
Meta is adding its Imagine features to Facebook and Instagram to compete with some of the best AI image generators on the market. Similar to Apple’s Image Playground or X’s Grok LLM, you can create images from anything you can imagine.
Thanks to Meta’s integration with social media platforms, you can easily share these AI-generated images with your friends and create posts for your feeds and stories, adding a new dimension to your Facebook and Instagram accounts.