Meta’s multimodal AI live in South Africa

If you own a pair of Ray-Ban Meta glasses, you may have noticed certain AI features don’t work. You would get a message that lets you know Meta AI is not available in your region.

Well, that’s changed for me in South Africa. I own a pair of the second-generation Ray-Ban Meta glasses, purchased in 2023, which I reviewed here, and received a push notification this week that said: “Meta AI is now available in your country or region. Open the Meta AI app to enable Meta AI on your glasses.”

I know support was announced around October when it was revealed the glasses were coming to South Africa, but the software support was staggered. And to be honest, the update could have come sooner, but I just happened to update my app this week.

I also noticed a few optometrists announce via social media they will be stocking the Ray-Ban Meta soon.

You could do basic commands like ask it to take a photo, record a video or use connected apps, like to send messages, make calls, reply to WhatsApp’s, post to Instagram etc, but now it expands to multimodal AI.

Meta describes its multimodal AI as: “You won’t just be able to speak with your glasses — the glasses will be able to understand what you’re seeing using the built-in camera. You can ask Meta AI for help writing a caption for a photo taken during a hike or you can ask Meta AI to describe an object you’re holding.”

So I opened the app and enabled Meta AI. As expected it tells you what you’re about to do:

• Get assistance from AI: You can ask Meta AI questions, including about what you see, and control your glasses hands-free.
• You’re in control: Meta AI captures voice and images only when you interact with it. Delete Meta AI interactions or disable Meta AI at any time in settings
• Help improve Meta AI: Depending on how you interact with Meta AI, images processed with Meta AI, voice transcripts, and related data will be used to improve AI at Meta and other Meta products.

Of course, I turned the last two settings off, I chose not to save interactions or to help improve Meta AI by learning from my usage.

I want to state that I did have access to these features prior to it officially rolling out in South Africa, through the use of my VPN. It’s cool to ask Meta AI “what am I looking at” or tell me what’s in front of me” but I don’t use this feature a lot. It’s a cool party trick. And also, some may find it more useful than I did.

If you own a pair of Ray-Ban Meta, it’s worth checking if you have these updates!

Review: Ray-Ban Meta