The AR ALLIANCE, a newly established trade group of tech and optical companies, has announced that META, owner of products such as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is joining the alliance as a founding member with a seat on the board of directors. The AR Alliance, whose members include EssilorLuxottica, provides an environment in which organizations of all sizes can take an active role in advancing and strengthening the augmented reality (AR) hardware development ecosystem, working together to speed innovation of breakthrough technologies and processes that create a meaningful and positive experience for users.

“We are building AR together,” says 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.”

Edgar Auslander, founding board member, AR Alliance and senior director, AR and wearable devices alliances and partnerships, Meta, adds, “Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses let people capture and relive moments as they see and hear them. 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.”

–Andrew Karp