Meta has begun implementing artificial intelligence features in its Ray-Ban Meta glasses in Spain, France, and Italy. Starting this week, users in these countries can access the Meta AI assistant with voice commands to answer general questions, such as gift suggestions or curiosities. This launch includes support in Spanish, French, and Italian, in addition to the already available English.
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Subscribe (it's FREE) ►Since their launch in September 2023, Meta claims to have worked to ensure that the glasses comply with strict European regulations. According to a statement on its blog, the company is excited about this advancement and promises to expand the availability of the features to more countries on the continent soon.
However, the glasses in Europe do not yet include certain multimodal capabilities available in the United States, Canada, and Australia, such as identifying elements in the environment using the camera. Meta claims to be working to offer this functionality in more regions in the future.
Compliance with laws is one of the major headaches for Meta, especially due to the EU AI Act and certain provisions of the GDPR related to the use of data to train artificial intelligence models. The company has trained its models using public data from Instagram and Facebook, even from users who have not opted out, which has led to ongoing tensions with European regulators.
At the beginning of the year, authorities requested Meta to stop training with European user data while they assessed its compliance with the GDPR. Meta complied with the request, but also promoted a public debate on the need to update the interpretation of the GDPR to adapt to technological development. In September, Meta resumed training with UK user data after making adjustments, and has already deployed some AI functionalities in seven European countries, now expanding its reach with the Ray-Ban Meta glasses.
