On April 8, 2026, Meta dropped two models on the same day: the open-weight Llama 5, and the closed, proprietary Muse Spark. Two months later, the company is drawing a clear line about which one matters for hardware. As of this week, Muse Spark now powers the Meta AI assistant on Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta smart glasses across the US and Canada — officially replacing Llama 4 on the device that Meta increasingly sees as its most strategic AI surface.
The deployment, confirmed by UploadVR and Let’s Data Science on June 8–9, is the culmination of a rollout that began in April and accelerated through May. Meta had promised Muse Spark would arrive on glasses “over the next few weeks” back on May 12; last week, it finally landed.
What Changes for Glass Owners
For the millions of users wearing Ray-Ban Meta or Oakley Meta frames, the upgrade is invisible infrastructure. The voice assistant, real-time translation, object recognition, and contextual awareness all now run on Meta Superintelligence Labs’ first proprietary model rather than the aging Llama 4.
Meta’s technical disclosures claim Muse Spark matches Llama 4 Maverick’s capabilities using over 10x less compute — a critical efficiency gain for battery-constrained wearables. The model scored 52 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, placing it fourth behind Gemini 3.1 Pro, GPT-5.4, and Claude Opus 4.6.
The Meta Ray-Ban Display — the version with an actual built-in screen — is still slated for summer 2026 and will ship with Muse Spark from day one.
The Strategic Signal
The glasses deployment clarifies Meta’s dual-track strategy. When Zuckerberg shipped both Llama 5 (open) and Muse Spark (closed) in April, it looked like hedging. In practice, the tracks serve different purposes:
- Llama 5 maintains the open-source ecosystem and developer goodwill that made Meta a credible AI platform
- Muse Spark is the competitive weapon — the model Meta actually deploys where it matters: its apps, its assistant, and now its hardware
With 1 billion monthly active users on Meta AI and $115–135 billion in capex for 2026, the company is betting that owning the AI layer on a device people wear on their face is worth more than open-source goodwill.
For the open-source community, the message is now unambiguous: Llama lives on, but the frontier runs through Muse Spark. And it’s already on your face.
Sources: UploadVR, Let’s Data Science, StartupHub.ai, Meta.