Meta's Vision for an AI-Powered World: Inside Quest 3, Ray-Ban Glasses, and Llama 4

TL;DR

Meta isn't just building products; it's creating an ecosystem where AI agents and mixed reality hardware like Quest 3 and Ray-Ban glasses will manage our daily lives. The future of interaction is here. #VentureStep #Meta #AI

INTRODUCTION

The line between our digital and physical lives is blurring faster than ever, with artificial intelligence poised to become an indispensable part of our daily routines. At the forefront of this transformation is Meta, which is architecting a future where AI isn't just a tool you access on a screen but a constant, integrated companion. This vision extends beyond software, deeply embedding AI into a new generation of hardware designed to reshape how we interact with the world and each other. ¹¹¹

In this episode of Venture Step, host Dalton explores Meta's ambitious roadmap, breaking down the strategy behind its upcoming hardware and software. He dives into the future capabilities of Llama 4, Meta's next-generation language model, and demonstrates the AI "agents" that are already being tested on social media. The conversation then shifts to the hardware enabling this vision: the Meta Quest 3 headset and the surprisingly subtle Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. 22222222

From AI agents that can manage your schedule and order your groceries to mixed-reality headsets that turn your living room into an interactive workspace, this episode unpacks how Meta plans to integrate its technology into every facet of life. Dalton analyzes how these advancements aim to change everything from daily productivity and gaming to socializing with hyper-realistic avatars, offering a glimpse into a future where AI and hardware converge. 3333333

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Llama 4's Future is Autonomous: Meta envisions Llama 4 not as a simple chatbot, but as a central AI manager that coordinates with a team of specialized "agents" to handle complex, real-world tasks on your behalf. ⁴⁴⁴
• A Soft Launch for Mainstream AI: By deploying personality-driven AI agents (like those based on Snoop Dogg and Tom Brady) on Instagram and Facebook, Meta is making AI interaction more approachable and comfortable for the average user. ⁵⁵⁵
• Quest 3 Wants to Be Part of Your Routine: With features like "augments"—permanent, spatially-anchored widgets for weather or news in your physical space—Meta is positioning the Quest 3 headset as an all-day device, not just one for gaming or work. ⁶⁶⁶
• Ray-Ban Meta Glasses Enable Augmented Intelligence: The smart glasses are designed to be a subtle, everyday accessory that can provide real-time information, capture point-of-view content, and eventually serve as a direct line to your AI assistant. ⁷⁷⁷
• Hyper-Realistic Avatars Will Redefine Socializing: Meta is heavily invested in creating photorealistic 3D avatars that will make virtual meetings with friends, family, and colleagues feel incredibly immersive and present. ⁸⁸⁸⁸⁸⁸

FULL CONVERSATION

Dalton: Welcome to Venture Step, where we discuss entrepreneurship, industry trends, and the occasional book review. Today, we're going to be discussing Meta's hardware, Quest 3, and Ray-Ban Meta glasses, and how that might reevaluate our relationship with hardware as AI increasingly becomes more integrated into our day-to-day lives. ⁹

The Future is Autonomous: What is Llama 4?

Dalton: Today, we're going to be discussing the route which Meta and Mark Zuckerberg want to take their next iteration of Llama 4. There are already plans for Llama 4, and it's going to be more of an autonomous task management model with AI agents. I have a brief demo of some AI agents that Meta has already released that I want to talk about. ^10101010

Llama 4 will have independent capabilities where they see that Llama 4 will be able to handle tasks or help manage your day. ¹¹

Dalton: What that might look like is I would have an AI agent—we'll call it Alfred, because Alfred from Batman seems dependable and helpful. Alfred might touch in with you in the beginning of your day, ask you what sort of things you have on your plate and what he can help handle. You might say, "I'm running a little late. Do I need to send a notification to the team? Can you check the traffic?" Or, "I need to follow up with Sally. She has my shoes." And finally, "I'm having people over and don't have time to stop at the grocery store. What can I make with the ingredients in my fridge?" 12121212121212121212121212121212

Dalton: Alfred could respond, "Great, I'll follow up with my friends and get back to you." What Alfred would do is reach out to these agents that Meta is creating. 13

Meet the AI Agents: From Snoop Dogg to Tom Brady

Dalton: Currently, they are launching with 28 AI agents, and they said this will be the initial launch, followed by more. Alfred would reach out to, I guess, Cooking with Max, and someone like Kendall Jenner, whose persona is the no-BS ride-or-die companion that helps manage friendships. They're also using Snoop Dogg for the dungeon master who helps you create dungeon scenarios, and Tom Brady is your sports friend who you can talk about sports with. The list goes on and on. ^14141414

A Soft Launch for AI: Why Meta's Agents Are on Instagram

Dalton: They have these AI agents that I'm speaking of on Instagram and Facebook currently. You can go on and message Cooking with Max or these other AI agents and have conversations with them. The key benefit of launching these agents is that many people are not necessarily comfortable talking with them. For the most part, if you're listening to this show, you've probably dabbled in ChatGPT or some LLMs. But this is an LLM that's purpose-built. ^{151515151515151515}

The cool thing about it being on social media is it gives people an intro, a soft launch to interacting with these AI agents and makes people feel a little bit more comfortable. ¹⁶

Dalton: It's a little bit more approachable. There's auto-prompt generation to help you decide what to say, or it's Snoop Dogg, or Paris Hilton as the detective partner. It can become a meme or something to be talked about with your friends. This gives people ease of access since it's integrated into Instagram and Facebook. The next step would be having one centralized AI agent that communicates with all these other agents to handle actual tasks for you. 171717171717171717

Live Demo: Talking Dating with Carter and Cooking with Max

Dalton: Now I'm going to go on my phone. I'm on Instagram on my mobile app. I'm going to ask Dating with Carter a question about trying to find my running wife. [Music] "Hey, Carter, I'm looking to try to find a running girlfriend who's interested in fitness, especially when it comes to running races and competing in triathlons. Where do you think I should find this individual?" ^{18181818181818181818181818181818181818181818181818}

Dalton: Okay, Dating with Carter says, "You should search out tight-knit communities like the running community or triathlon committees. It's perfect for finding like-minded singles. Try joining a local running club or teams that align with your interests. Attend races and events. Online communities and forums are also a great resource." ¹⁹

Dalton: All right, so that's what Dating with Carter says. Now we'll do Max. I'll ask Max if he can help me make a meal with some weird ingredients. "Hey Max, I have some friends coming over later tonight, but I want to use your expertise to figure out what I should be cooking. I have chicken, peanut butter, lettuce, tomatoes, asparagus, and some general household spices. What kind of meal can I create?" 20

Dalton: Okay, so they're saying I can create a Thai-inspired peanut chicken stir fry. Dice chicken with peanut butter, soy sauce, and spices, then add sliced asparagus and tomatoes. Serve over rice or noodles with a side of fresh lettuce leaves. I don't know, Cooking with Max, I'm not sure if that's the route we're going to go, but those were the real-time interactions. 21

Redefining Reality: A Deep Dive into Meta Quest 3

Dalton: Now we're going to shift over and discuss Meta Quest 3. It came out within the last six months. Meta Quest 3 has some increased capabilities, one of which is a better passthrough. Passthrough basically is when you have a headset on, how much of the outside world can you see? You can choose your level of immersion now. ²²

Dalton: With this level of passthrough, you can interact with your space. You can play video games in your space, and somehow the video games would know that, hey, I'm behind a couch, so you can't shoot through it, and this is cover. 23

You can use these real world objects in your virtual world with this mixed reality to interact with your friends and the environment of what you're playing in, which is pretty cool. ²⁴

Dalton: Another interesting thing is you can play board games with your friends. You can put the board game on the table, and everyone could be at the couch with the board game in the middle, and you could see everything interact, which is pretty cool. 25

What Are Augments? Permanent Widgets for Your World

Dalton: There's this thing called augments. Augments are these 3D, spatially anchored elements that are permanently structured in the anchored space. It's like having a widget on your phone. You put your calendar widget on your dashboard, and it's there every time. It's the same concept for these augments, which were demoed during Meta's keynote but don't come out until later this year. ^26262626

Dalton: They demoed some live photos you could have on the wall with your family, or a workout mirror. You have these widgets that are permanently anchored in your space when you put on your headset every time. What that tells me is that Meta is trying to move people more into using the headsets not just for playing video games or working. 27272727

...they want people to use them as part of their routine. ²⁸

Dalton: Maybe your routine when you get up is you put your headset on, check feeds while you're getting coffee, and see the baby monitor on the wall while you're watching the morning news. Right before you leave the house, you have an augment of the weather. I think that they want you to use MetaQuest headsets as more integrated into your daily life. 292929292929292929

The Future of Work: Microsoft 365 Meets Mixed Reality

Dalton: Meta also announced in their keynote an integration with Microsoft 365, which will be coming later this year. This is huge because a lot of people for work do a lot of stuff in Word, Excel, or PowerPoint. Instead of spending over $1,000 on monitors and a docking station, you could just purchase one $500 device and have a more expansive setup while spending less money. ^{30303030303030303030303030303030}

You want to expand virtually because it's easier to build these things with software than it is to do so with hardware. ³¹

Hyper-Realistic Avatars: The Next Level of Social Interaction

Dalton: There was an interview with Lex Fridman on his podcast, number 398, where Mark discusses the Metaverse with him in the Metaverse. Meta is working on 3D hyper-realistic avatars, which are insanely realistic. Right now, you need to go into a high-tech studio for three hours to get your whole face and body scanned. They need to get to the point where you can do it on your phone. If you can have this feature on your phone, you can have meetings with your family and friends across the world and feel like you're there. ^{32323232323232323232323232323232}

Beyond the Headset: The Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses

Dalton: We are moving over to Meta Ray-Bans. This is a hardware collaboration with the famous sunglasses company, Ray-Bans. You can purchase them for around $300, which is not that much more than normal Ray-Bans. It has a really nice camera that can take high-depth video and photos you can post directly to Facebook or Instagram. It has integration with Llama so you can ask questions on the fly, and it has hours of battery life. ^33333333

Dalton: When it's dead, you can still use them as normal sunglasses. They're not overly, "Oh my gosh, this person has a camera on their face." It's really subtle and hard to tell. That's one of the criticisms reviewers have—that you have no idea that someone's taking a video or a photo of you. 34

Augmented Intelligence vs. Privacy Concerns

Dalton: You can also call on Llama to ask questions, which is pretty interesting. ³⁵³⁵

It unlocks the ability for you to ask things on the fly... ³⁶³⁶

Dalton: You can ask about a restaurant or how long the Great Wall of China is. I'm going down a rabbit hole here, but it might help you with the augmentation of intelligence. 37373737

...amplify your cognitive abilities by having this AI device, giving you real time information and insights... ³⁸

Dalton: This is where I think Llama and Meta Ray-Bans will be going. Once things improve, you might be able to ask it with a certain keyword to take video from your glasses, give it to Llama in a multimodal fashion, and have it come back with a result like, "Tell me what car this is." Or you can ask Llama to have Alfred reach out to the AI agents we discussed to handle your tasks. 39393939

Dalton: Overall, it's super exciting, really cool stuff to have these AI assistants integrated in our daily lives. ⁴⁰

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• Lex Fridman Podcast #398: Mark Zuckerberg
• Microsoft 365
• Lululemon Mirror
• Peloton
• Ray-Bans
• Instagram
• Facebook

INDEX OF CONCEPTS

AI agents, Alfred, augments, Billy (Kendall Jenner), Cooking with Max, Dalton, Dating with Carter, Detective Partner (Paris Hilton), Dungeon Master (Snoop Dogg), Excel, Facebook, hyper-realistic avatars, Instagram, Lex Fridman, Llama 3, Llama 4, Lululemon, Mark Zuckerberg, Meta, Meta Quest 3, Microsoft 365, mixed reality, passthrough, Peloton, point of view (POV), PowerPoint, Ray-Ban Meta glasses, Riverside, Tom Brady, Victor (Dwayne Wade), Word