• by Colin Kirkland , July 9, 2025

Furthering its investment in AI-powered wearables, Meta has purchased a $3.5 billion stake in EssilorLuxottica, a luxury eyewear maker that is the manufacturer of Meta’s Ray-Ban and Oakley augmented reality (AR) smart glasses.

The move aligns with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's prediction that in the next decade, smart glasses will overtake smartphones.

Since their original launch in 2021, Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses have become a top-selling product for both the tech company and Ray-Ban across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The development of technologically more savvy smart glasses has even helped Meta's struggling Reality Labs division surpass recent quarterly projections.

Over the past year, Meta has brought its smart glasses to more regions across the world, while also integrating live AI-powered functionality into newer mixed-reality models.

The company's AI assistant allows users to translate between languages in real-time, identify music playing in the vicinity, and more with speech commands.

The company has said that “eventually live AI will, at the right moment, give useful suggestions even before you ask.”

Deepening its relationship with EssilorLuxottica, Meta will also begin selling its first pair of AR smart glasses with sports retailer Oakley. They are focused on performance, with longer battery life and a higher resolution camera.

Upon Meta's Oakley announcement, Rocco Basilico, Chief Wearables Officer at EssilorLuxottica, said these new smart glasses are “part of a broader multi-brand, multi-technology strategy that reflects the scale of our ambition: to build a connected eyewear category that spans lifestyles, communities, and use cases.”

This suggests the potential for future partnerships between Meta and EssilorLuxottica-owned brands, which include Burberry, Chanel, Coach, and Jimmy Choo. In other words, Meta is setting itself up to become a leader in commercial smart glasses.