Mark Zuckerberg’s Big AI Reveal? More Like a Glitchfest

Mark Zuckerberg’s big AI moment turned into a tech fail for the ages, after not one, but two onstage demos of Meta’s new smart glasses completely flopped in front of a live audience.

At Meta’s annual Connect conference, Zuck tried to show off the company’s newest pair of AI-powered Ray-Bans and a neural wristband that’s supposed to make digital life more hands-free. Instead, what people saw was a masterclass in awkward silences, failed commands, and some truly brutal buffering.

To kick things off, Zuckerberg joined food influencer Jack Mancuso live on video, and asked Meta’s fancy new glasses to help him make a Korean-inspired steak sauce. Simple enough, right? Not for Meta’s AI. It glitched almost immediately, ignoring basic questions and repeating incorrect steps like a robot stuck in a feedback loop. Mancuso had to ask what to do three times before the AI gave the same wrong answer twice.

The segment was quietly cut short as the team blamed “bad Wi-Fi” and tried to laugh it off. But the worst was yet to come.

In the very next segment, Zuckerberg attempted to make a video call using the new glasses and wristband. What followed was four failed call attempts, a bunch of awkward hand waving, and a visibly frustrated Zuck mumbling things like, “We’ll debug that later,” while the audience sat in secondhand embarrassment.

Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth eventually bailed him out by appearing on stage, cracking a joke about the Wi-Fi. But by then, the damage was done. Even Zuckerberg admitted, “You practice these things like 100 times, and then you never know what’s going to happen.”

The $799 Ray-Ban smart glasses are part of Zuckerberg’s effort to put Meta back on the AI leaderboard, especially after a string of high-profile stumbles.

He even took direct control of Meta’s AI division this year, reportedly offering new hires massive salaries in the hopes of catching up to rivals like OpenAI and Google.

But Wednesday’s fiasco felt like a metaphor: no matter how much money or ambition is thrown at it, the tech still isn’t quite ready for prime time. And when your futuristic glasses can’t even make a steak sauce or dial a phone call onstage, it’s hard not to wonder if we’re just being sold another pair of overhyped goggles.

In the meantime, the internet had a field day. The gifs, memes, and “bad Wi-Fi” jokes practically wrote themselves.