How Meta took the lead in the race for the post-smartphone world

There are moments when you experience emerging tech for the first time, and it feels genuinely different. That’s the case the first time you put on a pair of Meta’s most advanced smart glasses on the market, which project a high-resolution digital box inside the right lens and allow you—with the help of a smart wristband—to control objects on the screen by moving your fingers. Tap your pointer finger and thumb together, and an app opens. Say, “Hey, Meta,” and you’re suddenly chatting with an AI bot. This, as Meta sees it, is how most of us will eventually use AI. The company recently took Fortune inside a private demo room at its Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters to show off its growing family of smart glasses. The collection included the flagship Ray-Ban Wayfarer camera-enabled glasses, with an updated nine-hour battery life; the Ray-Bans with the lens display and “neural” wristband; new…