FILE PHOTO: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivers a speech, as a pair of Ray-Ban smart glasses appear on screen, during the Meta Connect event at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, U.S., September 27, 2023. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
(Reuters) -Meta Platforms said on Wednesday it is expanding access to its artificial intelligence assistant, Meta AI, on Ray-Ban smart glasses to seven additional European countries.
People in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland will now be able to interact with Meta AI using voice prompts to get answers to general questions, the Facebook and Instagram parent said.
Meta launched its AI technology in Europe in March, a rollout that was initially announced in June last year but was delayed following regulatory concerns on data protection and privacy.
While Meta AI was launched in the U.S. in 2023, its release in Europe faced several hurdles due to the European Union's stringent privacy and transparency rules.
Sprucing up its wearable technology with AI capabilities could help Meta attract new users at a time when the company is investing billions of dollars in bolstering its AI infrastructure.
Meta said the expansion will also include a live translation feature, which is being broadly rolled out in its markets.
It will be releasing a feature, where people can ask Meta AI about the things they are looking at and get real-time responses, in supported countries in the EU starting next week.
The company updated Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses with AI video capability and real-time language translation functionality in December 2024.
Meta had first announced the features during its annual Connect conference in September last year.
(Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru)
