Meta plans to add facial recognition to its Ray-Ban smart glasses as soon as this year, according to internal documents and sources familiar with the plans. The feature, codenamed "Name Tag," would let wearers identify people and get information about them through Meta's AI assistant. Mark Zuckerberg reportedly wants the feature to differentiate the devices and make the AI assistant more useful.

According to an internal document dated May 2025, Meta has been discussing the feature since early 2025. The company originally planned to release Name Tag to attendees of a conference for the blind before a general public rollout. The document also suggested the "political tumult" in the United States would be opportune timing, stating that civil society groups would have their resources focused on other concerns. This represents a turnaround for Meta, which shut down its facial recognition system for tagging people in photos five years ago.

Meta is still exploring who should be recognizable through the technology, with possible options including people a user knows via Meta platforms or those with public accounts on sites like Instagram. The company emphasized it would take a thoughtful approach if and before rolling out the feature. The glasses have already raised privacy concerns, as two Harvard students in 2024 used Ray-Ban Meta glasses with PimEyes to identify strangers on the Boston subway.