Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t have to worry about Sam Altman coming to get his glasses.
“I find it very uncomfortable talking to people with a camera and a light,” says the CEO of OpenAI told technology journalist Alex Heath during an interview for Heath’s “Sources Podcast,” published Tuesday.
Altman’s feelings become very clear. When reporters asked him on the sidelines of the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference last year if the sunglasses he was wearing were smart glasses, he quickly set the record straight.
“Absolutely not,” he said. “I don’t like smart glasses.”
Meta, which has its own competing AI models, is one of the biggest players in smart glasses and has partnered with Ray-Ban to make the devices. EssilorLuxottica, owner of Ray-Ban, said it sold more than 7 million AI glasses last year.
Not everyone likes to look through, or rather, into, the glasses.
Meta recently organized a PR blitz after some locations announced plans to ban customers from wearing smart glasses.
Instagram has also promised to crack down on users who use smart glasses to secretly film harassing content, often in the form of prank or pick-up line reaction videos. Business Insider reporter Katie Notopoulos has found that the social network still has work to do in this area.
The segment remains big business Meta. While the tech giant doesn’t report how much it makes from glasses alone, it has repeatedly said in earnings statements that higher sales of AI glasses are offsetting slower sales of its Quest headsets.
In July, Meta reported that Reality Labs, including consumer hardware sales, generated $431 million in revenue in the second quarter of 2026, up $61 million year-over-year.
As for OpenAI, Heath tried to get Altman to reveal a few more details about the ChatGPT maker’s highly anticipated AI devices that he’s developing with famed iPhone designer Jony Ive.
“I think there’s something that belongs on a table,” Altman said, “there’s something that belongs in your pocket, and there’s something that belongs on your body, and it’s going to take some time to get all those things out.”
