For a while now, there have been reports that Meta has been offering insane salaries to poach talent from rival companies, including recently an Apple AI executive. The company has also been buying out AI startups, and has just acquired PlayAI, a company that specializes in crafting natural-sounding voices for AI models.This spending spree for Artificial Intelligence — which has been the rage across the smartphone industry as well — makes perfect sense, keeping in mind Meta’s other obsession: VR. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is convinced that XR (Extended Reality) devices are the future of smartphones, and the company needs AI to perfect their function.
Under Zuckerberg’s leadership, Meta has spent billions of Dollars into growing the XR industry. Its most important contribution is undoubtedly the Meta Quest headsets, which came about due to Meta having bought Oculus in 2014. The Meta Quest 3 and its counterparts are affordable, powerful, and come with an extensive list of content to peruse.
By barely making any profits on its headsets, Meta has dominated the XR industry. Its Ray-Ban smart glasses are also much more popular than initially anticipated, and Zuckerberg is determined to release a consumer version of the Orion smart glasses soon.
With all these recent AI acquisitions, it seems clear to me what Meta’s end goal is: a pair of true AR smart glasses. These glasses won’t just project the UI in front of the user, they’ll also understand context and communicate better than any AI-powered glasses that have come before.
Acquiring startups like PlayAI ensures that Meta has as much talent behind it as possible. Like XR, the AI-powered AR smart glasses race is a slow burn, but Meta has its eyes on global dominance. The company may have missed out on smartphones, but it definitely wants to beat Apple and Samsung to the punch by making a name for itself in XR beforehand.
Speaking of, both Samsung and Apple are competing for this exact same future. We’ve seen the Apple Vision Pro, and there are now credible reports about an underwhelming Apple Vision Pro 2. Meanwhile, Samsung is almost ready to release its new headset: Project Moohan.
Will Meta’s acquisitions of AI startups and talent with reckless abandon give it an upper hand against the two, though? I truly believe that it will.
