Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, chief technology officer at Meta, said 2025 could be a pivotal year for Reality Labs, Meta’s AR and VR division.

He pointed to the recent launch of Meta’s Ray-Ban AI glasses in October 2023 as a key advancement.

These glasses have drawn attention from consumers and rivals like Google and Apple, who are also expanding in augmented reality.

Bosworth acknowledged growing competition but stressed that market adoption will ultimately decide the success of Meta’s AR and VR tech.

He noted feedback in hardware markets is often delayed, so companies must rely on internal confidence and execution.

He affirmed Meta’s commitment to its ambitious goals for the year, saying, “The progress we make this year is of disproportionate value.”

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🔗 Source: TechCrunch

🧠 Food for thought

1️⃣ Meta’s persistence through the VR “trough of disillusionment” is finally bearing fruit

The virtual reality industry has historically followed a pattern of hype cycles, with periods of excitement followed by disappointment, dating back to early experiments like Morton Heilig’s Sensorama in the 1960s and the failed VR boom of the 1990s1.

Meta’s investment began with its $2 billion acquisition of Oculus in 2014, a startup that had revitalized consumer interest in VR with its successful Kickstarter campaign raising $2.4 million2.

Despite persistent skepticism and multi-billion dollar annual losses at Reality Labs, Meta has maintained its commitment through what industry observers recognize as a “trough of disillusionment” that followed the initial VR excitement of 2015-2016.

The Ray-Ban AI glasses represent Meta’s first AR product to achieve significant consumer traction, marking a potential inflection point after a decade of investment that saw many competitors either scale back or abandon their VR/AR initiatives entirely.

This long-term persistence mirrors Facebook’s earlier success with mobile, where the company’s initially criticized pivot to “mobile-first” eventually proved prescient as smartphone usage exploded.

2️⃣ The AR/VR market is reaching critical mass with competitors’ entry signaling market validation

The global AR/VR market is projected to grow from $43.58 billion in 2024 to $382.87 billion by 2033, representing a compound annual growth rate of 27.31%3.

Meta currently dominates the VR headset market with a commanding 74.6% share, followed by Apple (5.2%), Sony (4.3%), ByteDance (4.1%), and XREAL (3.3%)4.

The entry of Google through partnerships with Gentle Monster and Warby Parker for AR glasses, along with Apple’s reported push into the same space, validates Meta’s vision while simultaneously threatening its market position.

Historical patterns in technology adoption suggest that standardization typically occurs only after multiple major players enter a market, making the current competitive landscape a potentially positive signal for the industry’s long-term growth.

3️⃣ Technical performance metrics reveal why AR glasses may succeed where VR headsets struggled

Success in AR/VR is heavily dependent on technical performance metrics, with latency being particularly crucial. VR requires latencies below 20ms, while AR needs even lower latencies below 5ms to prevent motion sickness and maintain immersion5.

AR glasses like Meta’s Ray-Ban partnership avoid many of the challenges that limited VR adoption, including bulkiness, isolation from the physical environment, and the “glasses problem” (many users already wear prescription eyewear)6.

User engagement metrics reveal that successful AR applications maintain retention rates above 40% and average session lengths exceeding 5 minutes, indicating sustained user interest rather than novelty-driven experimentation6.

AR glasses also benefit from clear, everyday use cases like navigation, information access, and communication, addressing the “content problem” that has plagued VR headsets where compelling applications beyond gaming have been limited.

The integration with AI assistants provides a natural interface that eliminates the awkward control schemes that hindered earlier AR/VR products, potentially solving what has historically been a significant barrier to mainstream adoption7.

Recent Meta developments

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