Meta AI smart glasses sell 7M units — now face a class-action suit

Meta’s AI-enabled smart glasses, built in partnership with EssilorLuxottica through its Ray-Ban and Oakley brands, are selling faster than almost anyone predicted — and generating controversy at roughly the same pace. Over 7 million units sold in 2025 alone, compared to a combined 2 million across 2023 and 2024, tells one story. The other story involves contractors in Nairobi watching intimate footage captured through users’ lenses, a class-action lawsuit, a pop star telling a festival crowd to avoid the product entirely, and regulators on two continents sharpening their pencils.

Key takeaways

• Meta and EssilorLuxottica sold over 7 million AI smart glasses in 2025, up from roughly 2 million units across 2023–2024 combined.
• Meta plans up to 26 style variants, including codenamed projects Modelo and Luna, and is reportedly developing “super sensing” glasses that record continuously.
• Contractors in Nairobi reviewed personal and intimate footage from users’ glasses as part of Meta’s data processing pipeline, triggering a US class-action lawsuit and a UK ICO inquiry.
• Meta paid a $5 billion FTC fine in 2019 over privacy violations, giving regulators and critics a clear frame for the current controversy.
• Google is expected to launch its own AI glasses in 2026, and Ray-Ban Meta glasses are priced between $299 and $499.

Meta’s Expansion in AI-Enabled Smart Glasses

The growth curve here is genuinely striking. The EssilorLuxottica Meta smart glasses partnership, which spans both the Ray-Ban and Oakley brands, has moved the product from a niche curiosity to a mainstream wearable category in under three years. That kind of trajectory rarely happens by accident.

Partnership with EssilorLuxottica and Brand Integration

The decision to anchor AI wearables inside established eyewear brands was strategic from the start. Ray-Ban carries decades of cultural weight; pairing it with Meta’s AI infrastructure gave the product a social legitimacy that a standalone tech gadget would have struggled to earn. Blackpink’s Jennie has been featured as a Ray-Ban Meta AI ambassador, appearing in advertising campaigns and in video content screened at live events — a sign of how seriously Meta is investing in the product’s cultural positioning.

That positioning is now under strain. At the Mad Cool Festival in Madrid in July 2026, singer Lorde told the crowd: “Increasingly in our world it gets harder and harder to know what is real. You don’t know if someone is wearing sunglasses or if they’re wearing those fucked up fucking… Can I just say, for the record, ‘Fuck the Glasses’. Don’t get the glasses. Not sexy.” The comments spread quickly on social media, and they landed with particular force because Lorde was performing at an event sponsored by Ray-Ban — followed on stage by its own brand ambassador.

Sales Growth and Product Diversification

Sales momentum, at least on paper, has not slowed. EssilorLuxottica reported over 7 million AI glasses sold in 2025, a roughly 250% jump from the approximately 2 million units sold across the previous two years combined. Meta is clearly treating this as validation for a much larger product push.

An internal memo points to up to 26 different style variants in development, including codenamed projects called Modelo and Luna. Three new models launched in 2026, featuring 14 additional translated languages and faster AI response speeds. The strategy is transparent: if AI glasses look and feel like regular glasses across enough styles and price points, the technology becomes ambient rather than conspicuous. The device stops being a gadget and starts being infrastructure.

Features and Product Innovations

Real-Time AI Translations and Visual Descriptions

The current generation’s live AI mode processes camera feeds in real time, delivering instant translations and visual descriptions through the glasses. For users navigating foreign cities or environments with accessibility needs, the utility is genuine. Battery life remains a constraint for continuous use — a technical ceiling that limits how far the always-on vision can actually go.

Limitations and Future AI Devices

Meta is reportedly working to push past those constraints with a new line described as “super sensing” glasses designed to record continuously. Following its acquisition of Limitless, Meta also plans to release an AI pendant device, signaling that always-on AI capture is a product category in itself — not just a glasses feature. The pendant extends the company’s ambient data ambitions beyond the face entirely.

That expansion matters because it reframes what Meta is building. This is not simply a wearables play. It is an infrastructure bet on continuous environmental data capture, with glasses and pendants as the first consumer entry points.

Privacy Concerns and Data Handling Issues

Human Review of User Footage by Nairobi Contractors

In early 2026, Swedish newspapers Svenska Dagbladet and Göteborgs-Posten reported that contractors in Nairobi were reviewing footage captured by smart glasses users — including intimate videos of people in bathrooms, undressing, and having sex — as part of Meta’s AI training pipeline. Financial documents, including credit card numbers, were reportedly visible to the same contractors.

The implications cut in multiple directions. Users who bought AI glasses understood they were sharing data with Meta’s systems. Most did not understand that human contractors would watch footage of their most private moments. The people filmed — often third parties who never consented to being recorded — had no say in the matter at all.

Male influencers and creators have reportedly used the glasses to film women in public without consent, monetizing the footage on social platforms. Some victims have faced extortion threats linked to covertly captured recordings, according to the New York Post. The glasses’ primary safeguard — a recording LED light — has been targeted by account holders selling hacks to disable it, accounts that Meta has since banned.

In March 2026, plaintiffs Gina Bartone and Mateo Canu filed a US class-action lawsuit accusing Meta and Luxottica of illegally routing captured footage to Kenyan subcontractors without user disclosure. The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office has opened its own inquiry. Emma Pickering of UK charity Refuge warned that a planned facial recognition feature called “Name Tag” — first reported by The New York Times in February 2026 — poses a “grave risk to privacy, safety, and civil liberties,” particularly for women and domestic abuse survivors. More than 70 civil liberties and advocacy organizations signed a letter raising the same alarm.

Historical Privacy Violations and Implications

None of this lands in a vacuum. Meta paid a $5 billion FTC fine in 2019 for privacy violations — still one of the largest regulatory penalties in tech history. That history means every new privacy incident arrives pre-framed for regulators, journalists, and juries. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has urged consumers to “think twice” before purchasing. A Guardian journalist who wore the glasses for a month wrote that the experience “left me feeling like a creep.”

Meta’s official response — that users must comply with local laws and avoid harmful activities — has done little to contain the criticism. For a company positioning smart glasses as the next smartphone, the gap between the product’s ambient data architecture and any meaningful consent framework is not a PR problem. It is a structural one.

Regulatory and Competitive Challenges Ahead

Upcoming EU and US Privacy Regulations

The regulatory environment is moving in a direction that is genuinely difficult for a device that captures continuous audio and visual data. The EU’s AI Act, GDPR enforcement mechanisms, and the prospect of US federal privacy legislation all represent serious headwinds. A device that records everything its wearer sees and hears, then routes that data to servers where human contractors can review it, fits almost every pattern that privacy regulators have historically targeted.

What makes this moment different from earlier Meta privacy crises is the physical nature of the data. Behavioral data from apps is abstract. Footage of people’s homes, faces, and private moments is not.

Google’s AI Glasses Launch and Market Competition

Google is expected to launch its own AI-enabled glasses later in 2026, bringing the two largest AI companies into direct competition in the wearables space. That competitive pressure will force Meta to move faster on features, pricing, and ecosystem integration — while simultaneously managing a legal and regulatory crisis that shows no signs of resolving quickly.

The broader irony is that Meta may have found the right form factor at exactly the wrong moment. Consumer demand is real — 7 million units in a single year is not a fluke. But the privacy architecture baked into this generation of devices is now the subject of lawsuits, regulatory inquiries, and a cultural backlash visible enough to reach festival stages in Madrid. Whether the next 26 style variants can outrun that reckoning is a question the sales figures alone cannot answer.

FAQ

What partnership underpins Meta’s AI smart glasses development?

Meta’s AI smart glasses are developed in partnership with EssilorLuxottica, which owns the Ray-Ban and Oakley brands.

How many AI smart glasses has Meta sold recently?

Meta sold over 7 million AI smart glasses in 2025, up significantly from about 2 million units in 2023–2024 combined.

What privacy concerns are associated with Meta’s AI smart glasses?

Privacy concerns include continuous audio and visual data capture, footage reviewed by human contractors in Nairobi — including intimate content — and a planned facial recognition feature called “Name Tag.” A US class-action lawsuit and a UK ICO inquiry are both underway.

What regulatory risks could affect Meta’s AI smart glasses?

Regulatory risks include the EU’s AI Act, GDPR enforcement, and potential US federal privacy laws targeting data collection and user privacy. Meta’s $5 billion FTC fine in 2019 for prior privacy violations gives regulators an established precedent to build from.

Article produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence and reviewed by the editorial team.