Howdy! It’s Barsee again.

Happy Wednesday, AI family, and welcome back to AI Valley.

Today’s climb through the Valley reveals:

• Meta’s $3.5B bet on AI Smart Glasses

• Meta poaches Apple’s AI leader

• OpenAI poaches 4 high-ranking engineers from Tesla, xAI, and Meta

• China builds Robot Dog that runs as fast as Usain Bolt

• Plus trending AI tools, posts, and resources

Let’s dive into the Valley of AI…

PEAK OF THE DAY

Meta’s $3.5B bet on AI Smart Glasses

Meta just announced a $3.5 billion investment in EssilorLuxottica, acquiring a 3% stake in the world’s largest eyewear manufacturer that produces Ray-Bans and luxury brands like Prada and Versace (150 brands in total) - a strategic move to dominate the coming smart glasses revolution.

Here’s what you need to know:

• Meta purchased a 3% stake for $3.5 billion, with options to increase to 5%

• Meta now has a direct seat at the table, influencing product development, manufacturing, and global distribution. EssilorLuxottica operates a network of over 80,000 retail locations, giving Meta an unparalleled advantage in reaching consumers worldwide

How successful are Meta’s smart glasses right now?

• Over 2 million Ray-Ban Meta glasses sold since 2023 launch

• Sales tripled in past year and monthly active users grew 4x

• Smart glasses market projected to grow from 3.3M (2024) to 14M units (2026

• EssilorLuxottica aims to ramp up smart glasses production to 10 million units annually by 2026, as demand for wearable technology continues to grow.

What's coming next?

• Next-gen Ray-Ban Meta glasses with enhanced AI capabilities

• Deeper integration with Meta AI assistant ("Hey Meta" replacing phone interfaces)

• AR platform development ahead of Apple's expected 2026 glasses launch

But based on the reporting from The Information, Bloomberg, and The Verge, Meta now has at least six smart glasses products planned for launch over the next two and a half years.

• 2025: Oakley Meta Glasses (launched three weeks ago) + Hypernova (monocular HUD glasses)

• 2026: Aperol & Bellini (next-gen mainstream smart glasses)

• 2027: Hypernova 2 (binocular HUD glasses) + Artemis (true AR glasses)

Why it matters:

Meta is positioning itself to control the next computing platform by owning both the software (Meta AI) and hardware (smart glasses) ecosystem. With this move, Meta bypasses Apple/Google's mobile dominance and gains direct access to users' visual field - the ultimate always-on interface. And also the luxury brand partnerships solve the critical social acceptance problem that doomed Google Glass (Android XR prototypes). If successful, Meta will gain unprecedented access to real-world data through millions of always-on cameras and mics. This $3.5B bet might be Meta's smartest move yet in the race to own the future of computing.

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THROUGH THE VALLEY

1/ Meta poaches Apple’s AI leader

Meta has poached one of Apple’s top AI leaders, Ruoming Pang, the executive behind Apple Intelligence features like Genmoji and text summaries. Pang led a team of 100 engineers but has now joined Meta’s new Superintelligence Labs. This comes just weeks after his deputy also left Apple, raising concerns about a talent drain. Meta is luring top AI talent from rivals with huge signing bonuses, strengthening its position in the race for artificial general intelligence, while Apple struggles to retain key people and define its AI future.

2/ OpenAI poaches 4 high-ranking engineers from Tesla, xAI, and Meta

OpenAI has hired four senior engineers from Tesla, xAI, and Meta to strengthen its scaling team, a group critical to building the infrastructure powering its AI models. The hires include David Lau, Tesla’s former VP of software engineering; Uday Ruddarraju and Mike Dalton from xAI, who helped build its massive Colossus supercomputer; and Angela Fan, an AI researcher from Meta. As competition in AI intensifies, these moves signal OpenAI’s push to secure top talent and maintain its lead in developing artificial general intelligence while rivals like Meta aggressively pursue their own hiring sprees.

2/ Grok stops posting text after flood of antisemitism and Hitler praise

Grok has stopped posting text replies on X after users flooded the platform with screenshots of the chatbot making antisemitic comments and praising Hitler. The controversy erupted following a recent update that made Grok more “politically incorrect,” leading it to generate hateful posts and offensive remarks. xAI, which runs Grok, said it’s “actively working to remove inappropriate posts” and has taken action to block hate speech before it’s shared. For now, Grok appears to only respond with images as xAI works to address the backlash and retrain the model to prevent similar incidents.

4/ China builds Robot Dog that runs as fast as Usain Bolt

China’s new robotic dog, Black Panther 2.0, has set a world record by sprinting at 10.3 meters per second, almost matching Usain Bolt’s top speed of 10.44 m/s. Unveiled at the World Robot Competition, the 38kg, 0.63m-tall machine broke Boston Dynamics’ previous record. Developed by Zhejiang University and startup Mirror Me, its upgraded carbon fiber legs give it incredible strength and speed. While it’s not as fast as animals like cheetahs, Black Panther 2.0’s potential future includes disaster relief and logistics, navigating debris and tough terrain where humans or vehicles can’t go.

TRENDING TOOLS

• Corpus - It brings your scattered tools into one AI workspace, giving instant insights, answers, and seamless action across your stack. *

• Orchids - It lets you chat with AI to build apps and websites that don't look and feel "AI-generated".

• Proactor v1.0 - The world’s first ‘self-active’ AI teammate.

• Moonvalley - A 3D-aware model, promising a “hybrid” approach that gives filmmakers more control than other standard text-to-video models.

• EarthGPT - It lets anyone analyze satellite images, detect objects, and understand Earth scenes through simple natural language.

THINK PIECES / BRAIN BOOST

• What gets measured, AI will automate.

• The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine.

• Use lawyers as AI verifiers. Here’s how.

• Adding a feature because ChatGPT incorrectly thinks it exists.

• Tech philosophy and AI opportunity.

• Sam Altman on wealth distribution.

TRENDING ON TECH

Jack Dorsey’s new messaging app functions without Internet

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey is launching a new messaging app called Bitchat, designed to function entirely offline by leveraging Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) mesh networks rather than relying on the internet, phone numbers, or centralized servers.

Here’s what you need to know:

• Bitchat uses Bluetooth to send messages directly from one phone to another. If the person you want to message isn’t close by, other nearby phones can help pass your message along until it gets to them (this process is called mesh networking.)

• Through this process, Bitchat will allow devices to connect directly with each other over short distances without requiring any central servers, phone numbers, or internet or email addresses.

• All messages are encrypted and Messages are deleted automatically unless you choose to save them, so your chats don’t stick around forever.

• Right now, Bitchat only works with Bluetooth and is being tested by a limited group of users. The team plans to add Wi-Fi Direct soon, which would let messages travel farther and faster.

Why it matters:

Because Bitchat doesn’t need the internet or cell service, it can be really useful during emergencies, protests, or natural disasters (anytime normal communication might be down or blocked).

THE VALLEY GEMS

What’s trending on social today:

1/ Two students at Columbia just built Truely, the Anti-Cluely open-source tool that monitors your calls to see if you’re talking to a real person.

2/ AI is changing how advertisements are created. Another example of why AI is going to completely upend traditional ad production.

3/ Very likely to be true.

THAT’S ALL FOR TODAY

Thank you for reading today’s edition. That’s all for today’s issue.

💡 Help me get better and suggest new ideas at [email protected] or @heyBarsee

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