What Should An AI Device Look Like? — With Alex Himel

**Alex Kantrowitz** (0:00)
What does the future AI device or devices look like? Let's talk about it with the head of wearables at Meta right after this. I'm just back from ServiceNow's Knowledge 2026 in Las Vegas, and the conversations I had there are ones you're going to want to hear. I sat down with their president and CPO, Amit Zaveri, on the platform strategy powering Enterprise AI, Chief People and AI Enablement Officer, Jackie Canney, and Chief Digital Information Officer, Kelly Romack, on what AI really means for the workforce. The technical leaders behind ServiceNow's NVIDIA partnership on shipping AI at scale and Ulta Beauty on deploying ServiceNow's technology across 1300 stores. If you want to know where Enterprise AI is actually headed, not the hype, but the real story, you can find these videos on my YouTube channel, search Alex Kantrowitz on YouTube. Depending on who you ask, between 80 and 95 percent of Enterprise AI projects fail. To get AI to work for you, you don't need more tokens, you need better people. Aboard pairs powerful proprietary tools with senior engineers who've seen it all. That combination means your project doesn't stall, doesn't drift and doesn't fall, it ships. Whether you're a startup that needs to get to market or an enterprise with complex legacy challenges, Aboard delivers exactly what your business needs fast. Aboard is your partner for AI transformation. Visit aboard.com and let's build something together.
Welcome to Big Technology Podcast, a show for cool-headed and nuanced conversation of the tech world and beyond. We have a great show for you today. We're going to talk about what the future of AI device or AI devices looks like with the person who's been running the effort at Meta, Alex Himel. Alex, welcome to the show.

**Alex Himel** (1:37)
Hey, thanks for having me. Always great to meet someone else named Alex. Very excited to be here.

**Alex Kantrowitz** (1:41)
Well, it's great to have you here. We're going to talk about the new models, especially the Ray-Ban Meta Optics, which I have in my hand here. And if you're on audio, we'll talk about the products that we're holding. These are slimmer models that are meant to be used indoors or can be used indoors in a way that the others haven't been. And it really opens up a whole new set of use cases for these AI wearables, which is what your line of glasses are.
But to begin with, I just want to start broad because these glasses that have had the Meta assistance have been within them, have been in market for a long time. But I think folks are still trying and I personally am trying to figure out what the use case is. I mean, it's obviously great for photos and you can listen to music on them. But this broader idea of an AI device is yet to really shape, take form in a lot of our minds.
So can you just begin by painting a picture for me of, in the future, maybe it's a few months or a year or a couple years down the line, how am I going to go about my daily life if this product works in a way that's different from the way that people are going about their daily lives today?

**Alex Himel** (2:52)
I'll get there, but can I go backwards first? A little bit of how we got there?

**Alex Kantrowitz** (2:56)
No backwards, we go forwards.

**Alex Himel** (2:58)
We're only going forwards.

**Alex Kantrowitz** (2:59)
Look, everybody wants to take a step back. We'll do that over the course, but I'd love to hear your perspective from the start here and then we can work our way backwards.

**Alex Himel** (3:07)
I'll go forwards first. The only reason I hesitated is that I think when a lot of companies and people have tried to get in the space and say, hey, what's going to be possible with this? I think they try to jump too far into the future and ignore how to get there. I won't go that way. Let's get there in a bit. I think what you're going to see is that if you've got a pair of glasses that is already comfortable to wear, is already providing value as sunglasses or as optical glasses like we're launching with the ones I'm wearing and the ones you're just talking about, then you're going to get more help and assistance with going about what you're trying to do during the day from your glasses. They can see what you see, they can hear what you hear, you can talk to them. Right now, I use mine a ton to ask simple look up questions. If I'm driving and my six-year-old son is in the back just pegging me with questions, I can ask my glasses without having to take my eyes off the road and hands off the wheel.