Meta's Next Wearable May Be Earbuds With AI And Built-In Cameras

Meta, once a metaverse hopeful that burned billions of dollars each year, has now cultivated a taste for generative AI. The company recently put its namesake AI on the Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses and received a positive response, especially over the convenience of serving AI in a form factor that is not as cumbersome as standalone hardware like the Rabbit R1. Now, the company is planning to diversify its wearable portfolio with a focus on audio and AI integration.

According to a report from The Information, Meta is currently working on audio products that would put AI at the center with the added convenience of cameras. Now, earbuds with an onboard camera might sound odd and overkill, but the concept is not too different from the Ray-Ban Stories glasses, which hide a speaker and camera in the guise of cool shades.

In fact, putting a camera and an AI agent on earbuds sounds like a recipe for serving a multi-modal version of Meta AI, straight into a person's ear. Think of it as the evolution of earbuds from Google and Amazon, which come with Google Assistant and Alexa, ready to serve at the whim of a voice command. "Meta Platforms is exploring developing artificial intelligence-powered earphones with cameras, which the company hopes could be used to identify objects and translate foreign languages, according to three current employees," the report says.

Now, it seems Meta hasn't quite decided between wireless earbuds and over-the-ear headphones. "Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has seen several possible designs for the device but has not been satisfied with them," claims the report. Currently in development under the codename Camerabuds, there doesn't seem to be a date attached to the project's public release, but the premise is promising.

The company has already deployed Meta AI to its most popular products, including Instagram and WhatsApp, allowing users to chat with it and even generate images from text prompts. But the ultimate goal seems to be integrating visual capabilities. Earlier today, OpenAI gave a glimpse of what a multi-modal ChatGPT (powered by GPT-4o) can accomplish with vision superpowers, allowing it to make sense of the world seen through the on-device camera.

But do keep in mind that the Meta Camerabuds leaked here is an ongoing project, which means it can be nixed down the road. Meta certainly is no stranger to such a move. Not too long ago, we heard about Meta developing a smartwatch with a camera sensor onboard, but it was ultimately canceled as Meta pushed forward with the metaverse ambitions. Now that the company is doing some impressive work with in-house AI projects like the Llama model, it could very well go back to experimenting once again.