AI wearables face privacy backlash as Oura delays IPO

Two years ago, Bella Nowroozi was on a date at the mall when she noticed something odd: A blinking light on her companion’s glasses.

The 24-year-old master’s student instantly recognized the frames as the Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses she had seen on social media. She told him to delete the recordings.

“I was honestly pretty shocked,” Nowroozi told CNBC, reflecting on the interaction. “I hadn’t really experienced anything like that before. I was also scared to go on dates after that as openly as I did before.”

Apple, Google, Meta and a swarm of other tech contenders are betting that new artificial intelligence wearables in the form of glasses, rings, charms and pendants can push the market toward its category-defining moment. But as the gadgets have grown in notoriety, they’ve also been met with privacy backlash and doubts about whether the technology is beneficial enough to become a fixture in everyday life.   

Meta made a splash last week with the unveiling of its Tamagotchi-like Muse Charm, a custom housing for its personal agent app that quickly topped Apple’s iOS App Store free apps list. The company has continued to release new iterations of its Meta Ray-Ban AI glasses and offers an array of models at different price points.

This week, OpenAI rolled out its own personal assistant called Dots. The ChatGPT maker is also working with iPhone designer Jony Ive on consumer devices, but its first offering does not appear to be a wearable, according to Bloomberg. Apple provided a look at its latest devices at the beginning of September, complete with AI features on the Watch Series 12 that will listen to your conversations.

Besides the plethora of available devices, the market looked set this week to keep the momentum rolling with the debut of smart ring maker Oura.

But on Tuesday, the company delayed its expected initial public offering at the last minute, despite signaling strong demand for its products.

Oura cited “uncertainty in the IPO market” as the reason for the move, but some analysts were skeptical.

“I really believe that there’s something else that’s causing them to pull out of the IPO, and I don’t think it’s the market,” said Anshel Sag, a principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. “I just can’t nail what it is.”

“Them jumping out of this IPO is kind of weird,” he said.

Branding problems

Meta is navigating pushback to its smart spectacles, which have been dubbed “pervert glasses” on social media because of their discreet cameras that can be used for harassment and other misbehavior.

One social media user said a man took photos of her on a date without her permission. Another said a buyer from Facebook Marketplace took unauthorized videos of her and her children. Meta’s own advertising campaign featuring Kylie Jenner filming her everyday life drew further criticism of the surveillance-like nature of the videos.

Meta did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

DA Davidson analyst Gil Luria said the growing resistance to camera-equipped glasses is a hard battle to overcome.

“It’s done for at this moment,” said Luria. “We’re going to have to revisit this 10 years from now.”

When Luria first gifted the spectacles to his twin teenage boys last year, they were “super excited.” He says now, they “wouldn’t be caught dead in them.”

Last month, Meta unveiled a camera-free smart glasses option.

The explosion in wearables couldn’t come at a more critical time as the policy debate over AI safety risks intensifies in Washington and the blowback takes center stage ahead of the midterm elections in November.

Far from the cute, fuzzy appearance of Meta’s Muse character called Jolly, sprawling data centers have become the visual symbol of AI opposition in the U.S. Many argue that wearables and other devices that are always listening or recording have become an extension of that perceived surveillance state.

Flock Safety’s license plate scanners are being vandalized and cities have ended contracts with the company over community outcry. Smart glasses have been banned from gyms and other places because of privacy concerns.

In February, the judge in the Meta social media addiction trial in Los Angeles threatened to hold anyone using AI smart glasses during CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony in contempt of court. Several people escorting Zuckerberg into the court were wearing the Meta Ray-Ban AI glasses.

“Their value add has to overcome the perception of AI being a technology that people are opposed,” said Sag. “It needs to be more helpful and useful than people’s apprehensions about it.”

Design and execution

GPS delivered maps to a screen, the smartphone created a pocket-sized personal computer and AI promises to bring efficiency and automation to everyday life.

New gadgets in the wearables market are vying to build a new category of devices, but the most futuristic gadgets today aren’t necessarily what the consumer wants, said Avi Greengart, founder and tech analyst at market research firm Techsponential.

From sleep readings to exercise tracking and accident detection, health wearables have shown immense promise in a market cornered by big tech giants like Apple and Google, and even startup Oura. Accessibility features added to Apple’s AirPods are transforming the popular headphones into hearing aids, Greengart said.

But some of the flashy emerging AI tech, including pins and pendants, has hit significant design and execution roadblocks.

Greengart pointed to the Rabbit r1 personal assistant, which lacked distinct use cases from the smartphone and faced technical and hardware issues. Another failed contender was the Humane AI Pin, discontinued last year following poor customer reviews.

“If you force someone to spend $700 on a device that overheats, has a user interface that doesn’t work in sunlight, battery life that is poor, unless what it does is magical, that’s not going to work,” said Greengart.

Nowroozi, whose sister owns a pair of Meta glasses, is holding off on buying into the AI wearable wave.

“I can’t really think of how this would really be different from what a phone could do,” she said.