Meta Connect 2026: Zuckerberg bets the house on AI glasses and mixed reality

Mark Zuckerberg took the stage at Meta’s Menlo Park campus on September 23 at 7 PM ET, and the message was clear: Meta is done treating wearables as a side project. The Meta Connect 2026 keynote, streamed live to audiences worldwide, centered on AI-powered glasses, mixed-reality hardware, and software updates that collectively represent the company’s most concentrated push yet into the wearable technology market. What Zuckerberg actually announced The headliner on the hardware side is the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3, an updated version of the smart glasses line that has quietly become one of the more commercially credible wearable products in the consumer electronics space. Alongside it, Meta introduced Luna, a camera-free, audio-only variant of the Ray-Ban Meta lineup. Luna strips the camera out entirely, which makes the product less capable on paper but potentially far more palatable to privacy-conscious buyers who want the AI assistant without the lens. Meta also previewed Project Phoenix, its upcoming mixed-reality headset. Rounding out the announcements were updates to Muse AI, Meta’s intelligent virtual assistant, with improvements aimed at expanding functionality and making the day-t...