Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is delving into digital assistants, smart glasses, and AI, accompanied by new AI tools and celebrity-backed digital assistants, in a bid to propel metaverse development.

Mark Zuckerberg unveiled these AI developments at Meta's Connect conference for VR developers, held at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, California. Among the showcased innovations were the Quest 3 virtual reality headset and the latest Ray-Ban smart glasses. These technologies are seen as integral components in Meta's vision for the metaverse.

Powering these new AI tools is the Emu computer vision model, developed by Meta. Additionally, Meta's AI capabilities are driven by their expansive language model, Llama 2, which has been developed in collaboration with Microsoft Bing. This partnership enables users to access real-time information from the internet, further enhancing the metaverse experience.

Mark Zuckerberg envisions a seamless integration of Meta AI with popular platforms like Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and eventually the company's mixed reality devices. This integration will enable users to access a wealth of information and services within the metaverse, making it an immersive and interconnected digital realm.

In a strategic move to bolster its AI offerings, Meta has partnered with notable celebrities such as Snoop Dogg and Kendall Jenner. These collaborations aim to create virtual assistants that will be available to users of Meta's messaging apps. This initiative is part of Meta's broader effort to infuse AI capabilities throughout its product ecosystem, competing with other tech giants like Google and Microsoft, known for their cutting-edge generative AI features.

Why does it matter?

Meta's emphasis on metaverse and extended reality technologies has been a significant strategic move, backed by substantial investments exceeding 12 billion US dollars. However, the pace of adoption has been relatively slow, raising questions about the returns on these investments and the whole metaverse concept. Nonetheless, these recent AI-driven endeavours could hold the key to rejuvenating interest and advancement in this domain, potentially shaping the future of digital experiences.