BUSINESS Meta Joins the AR Alliance for Augmented Reality Wearable Devices By Staff Thursday, April 25, 2024 12:21 AM PISCATAWAY, N.J.—The AR Alliance has announced that Meta, owner and operator of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and other products and services, and a leader in building technologies that help people connect, is joining the alliance as a founding member with a seat on the board of directors. The AR Alliance provides an environment for companies and organizations to take an active role in advancing and strengthening the augmented reality (AR) hardware development ecosystem, the organization stated. Diverse organizations across the expanding, global AR ecosystem work together through the AR Alliance to speed innovation of breakthrough technologies and processes for building AR wearables and devices that create a meaningful and positive experience for users.“We are building AR together,” said Dr. Bharath Rajagopalan, chair, AR Alliance, and director of strategic marketing, STMicroelectronics. “The promise of AR and its potential market are so vast that there is ample room for all our member companies to succeed together. The AR Alliance is the place where concrete work takes place to harmonize approaches for advancing, unifying, and growing the global AR supply chain and accelerating innovation. We are excited for Meta to join us in this important work and bring their technology leadership, deep market understanding and unique market experiences and perspectives to help propel the AR market.”“Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses let people capture and relive moments as they see and hear them," added Edgar Auslander, founding board member, AR Alliance, and senior director, AR and wearable devices alliances and partnerships, Meta. "With help from integrations like MetaAI, they're able to ask and learn more about the world around them. They are an important step in our journey to AR glasses.“We anticipate that future AR products will bring more innovation to help people create, connect and get things done. To get there, we need to build and nurture an ecosystem of partners across the AR ecosystem. This is what makes us excited to join the AR Alliance as a founding board member and we are looking forward to working on creating the future of AR together,” Auslander said.To learn more about membership in the AR Alliance, click here. Flexible membership levels are available.