Good morning. Despite living in America’s tech capital of San Francisco, I have yet to encounter anyone wearing Meta’s Ray-Ban AI smart glasses. This seems especially weird in light of Wednesday’s news that EssilorLuxottica, the Ray-Ban parent company that makes the Meta smart glasses, sold more than 7 million pairs of them in 2025.
Compared to the 1.25 billion smartphones that shipped last year, seven million is small potatoes. But for a new(ish) technology in a form factor with plenty of doubters, seven million people is not too bad.
Google Glass (remember that) never sold anywhere close to seven million units, yet one would see folks wearing them—and lampooned—often enough in San Francisco. Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses are less conspicuous, of course. That means less backlash, which is good. But it also means the product is less visible and its success less immediately evident.
Today’s tech news below.
Alexei Oreskovic@lexnfxalexei.oreskovic@fortune.com
