Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. News

AI just came to VR in a big way

By
Alan Truly wears a Meta Quest 3 while laying down with a Meta AI prompt overlaid.
Alan Truly wears a Meta Quest 3 while laying down with a Meta AI prompt overlaid. Photo by Tracey Truly / Digital Trends

Meta just announced a huge update to its AI and it’s coming soon to the Meta Quest platform, home to some of the best VR headsets you can buy. In the next few weeks, you’ll soon have access to a smart voice assistant anytime you wear your Quest 3, Quest Pro, or Quest 2.

You can see some examples of how Meta AI works on the Quest 3 in the video below. Note that Meta AI can use the Quest 3’s and Quest Pro’s mixed reality mode to see real-world objects and answer your questions. The Quest 2’s black-and-white passthrough camera isn’t supported for visual input.

Introducing Meta AI on Meta Quest ✨ Rolling out this August in experimental mode.

Meta Quest VR headsets in the U.S. and Canada will start getting these new multimodal AI capabilities as early as August. It will be a gradual rollout, so you might not see the update until September.

Recommended Videos

I asked Meta about generating AI images in Quest headsets and whether the AI would be able to see my Meta avatar and virtual environment. Those features might come at a later date, but won’t arrive in the next update.

Related: 
Best new movies to stream on Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, Max (HBO), and more

Meta AI has been in Facebook, Messenger, and WhatsApp since September 2023, helping you with customized AIs for cooking, jokes, and games. It can even generate images when you use the @MetaAI /imagine command while chatting with a friend.

Meta AI also supercharges Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses, giving you cutting-edge AI assistance wherever you go. The upcoming Meta Quest update will bring a version of AI that’s similar to what’s available in Meta smart glasses. You can ask general questions like what to wear in the typically hot weather of Palm Springs and even hold up a pair of shorts and ask Meta’s AI to suggest a matching top.

This announcement came at the same time Meta announced its 405B parameter Llama 3.1, the largest AI ever released as open source. Meta also posted AI benchmarks that indicate Llama 3.1 is competitive with the latest OpenAI and Anthropic models.

You can try Meta AI 3.1 right now at meta.ai and on WhatsApp in the U.S. Keep your Meta Quest VR headset plugged in and in sleep mode to get the update as soon as its available in your area.

Alan Truly
Alan Truly
Computing Writer
Alan Truly is a Writer at Digital Trends, covering computers, laptops, hardware, software, and accessories that stand out as…
Topics

Editors’ Recommendations

I was blown away by these smart glasses that turn 2D videos into a 3D experience
Alan and Tracey Truly watch a movie together with Viture One smart glasses.

I love the idea of watching movies and videos in 3D. The experience is more immersive when I have a sense of depth. The best smart glasses offer 3D modes, but the effect usually only works for videos recorded in stereoscopic format. That limits the amount of content available.

That all changed recently thanks to Viture’s AI breakthrough that brings flat movies to life, adding depth and a feeling of physical presence. Even more impressive, it happens in real time and works on streaming videos, without downloading and processing files in advance.

Read more
Meta’s latest open source AI models challenge GPT, Gemini, and Claude
Meta AI widget on Home Screen.

Meta has announced the latest iteration of its open-source AI model family Llama 4, which the brand has developed while competition in the generative AI industry continues to intensify.

The new AI family includes four models, and Meta detailed Llama 4 Scout, Llama 4 Maverick, and Llama 4 Behemoth. Meta detailed on its AI website that the models were trained on “large amounts of unlabeled text, image, and video data.” This indicates that the models will have varied multimodal capabilities.

Read more
VR isn’t just fun. It’s a new hope for early detection of Alzheimer’s
Alan Truly smiles in this closeup, while wearing the Varjo Aero VR headset.

Over the past few years, virtual reality (VR) has emerged as a remarkably useful addition to the field of medical science. From offering physician training and helping people cope with pain to delivering at-home physiotherapy and reducing stress, VR platforms have proved to be of immense help. 

The next VR breakthrough could help with the early detection of a well-known neurodegenerative disease. In its current form, the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease requires expensive neurological tests, brain scanning, blood analysis, and more. There is no single, or definitive, biomarker test. 

Read more