Zuckerberg says Meta glasses let him take calls from a jet ski
The Meta CEO told Complex the person on the other end could not tell he was riding, as he pitches smart glasses as a major computing platform.
By Sofia Marchetti · World Affairs Correspondent
4 min read
Mark Zuckerberg said he has used Meta smart glasses to take business calls while riding a jet ski, a claim he offered as proof that the company’s wearable audio can make work possible in unusual places. The anecdote shows how central AI-enabled glasses have become to Meta’s consumer hardware push, even as the division behind the products continues to post large losses.
Zuckerberg told Complex in an interview published this week that the person on the other end of the call “could not tell” he was on a jet ski. He credited the glasses’ microphone placement in the nose pad and said the audio was clear enough that “you could literally be in a wind tunnel” and still sound clear to the other person.
He also framed the feature as useful for people who do not want to disclose where they are working from. “You don’t necessarily want to tell the other person that you’re on a jet ski,” Zuckerberg told Complex.
Meta’s smart glasses lineup
Zuckerberg has become the most visible promoter of Meta’s glasses strategy. Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index lists him as the world’s seventh-richest person, and he has tied Meta’s next phase to wearable devices that combine cameras, audio, displays and AI assistants.
Meta sells AI-powered eyewear through partnerships with EssilorLuxottica, the parent company of Ray-Ban and Oakley. Fortune has reported that the lineup ranges from the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2, priced at $379, to the $799 Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, the company’s first consumer-ready glasses with a built-in display.
Zuckerberg introduced the Ray-Ban Display model at Meta’s Connect conference in September, according to Fortune. The product is sold with a Neural Band, a wrist-worn device that detects electrical signals in the forearm so users can control the heads-up display with small finger movements.
The display sits on the right side of the glasses and can show messages, alerts, apps and photos, according to Fortune. The glasses also support live translation.
Why Zuckerberg is betting on eyewear
Zuckerberg told Complex that Meta’s opportunity starts with the large number of people who already wear prescription glasses. He said nearly 2 billion people use glasses for vision correction, giving smart eyewear a broad potential market.
He compared the shift he expects in glasses to the move from flip phones to smartphones. “It felt pretty clear that in five years or whatever, all of the flip phones were going to be smartphones, and that’s basically how I feel about glasses today,” he said.
Zuckerberg also argued that glasses can keep people more engaged with those around them than phones do. He said the form factor can give an AI assistant access to what users see and hear while allowing it to speak with them during the day.
Meta has worked on related virtual and augmented reality technology since 2014, Zuckerberg told Complex. He also said the company is already planning its 2028 glasses products.
The push is part of what Zuckerberg has called “personal super intelligence.” He contrasted that vision with rival AI approaches built around a single shared system, saying a future with “one big AI” for everyone would be “a bad future, no matter how good the AI is.”
Costs and complications
The investment has been expensive. Statista reported that Meta’s Reality Labs division, which includes the glasses business, posted a $19.2 billion operating loss in 2025. Fortune has reported that Meta expects 2026 capital expenditures could reach as much as $145 billion.
Zuckerberg has defended the spending by saying Meta’s usual model is to build products that can reach billions of people and then focus on making money from them once they have scale. On Meta’s January earnings call, he said glasses sales had tripled over the previous year, and TechCrunch reported that he described them as among the fastest-growing consumer electronics in history.
The products have also drawn scrutiny because they can record. Fortune reported that in February, a judge threatened to hold members of Zuckerberg’s entourage in contempt after recording-capable Meta glasses were worn into a courtroom where recording was barred.
This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.