Quest fans, mark your calendars for a jam-packed Meta Connect on September 25 (2024)

What you need to know

• Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the Meta Connect 2024 dates — September 25–26 — on Instagram Stories.
• Meta unveiled the Quest 3, Ray-Ban Smart Glasses, and AI features at Connect 2023.
• We expect the leaked Meta Quest 3s and "Orion" AR glasses prototype to appear at Meta Connect 2024.

Meta Connect 2024 will take place on September 25–26, Mark Zuckerberg revealed in a brief Instagram story on Monday. Meta's social media accounts promise that Connect 2024 will "explore the future of AI and mixed reality and share progress on our long-term vision to help build the metaverse."

We won't know more about the Connect 2024 itinerary for months. That being said, Meta's PR team prioritizing AI before XR feels like an intentional choice. After Google covered two straight hours of AI at I/O 2024, Meta might take a similar approach this fall, showing off how its Meta AI and Llama 3 models have evolved.

If you're sick of AI, that won't sound appealing. But unlike Google, Meta should counterbalance its AI push with plenty of hardware announcements to keep consumers invested.

Months of leaks have us confident that Zuckerberg will unveil the Meta Quest 3s (or Quest Lite) on stage at Meta Connect 2024, just as he revealed the Quest 3 at Connect 2023.

The Meta Quest 3s is rumored to have the Quest 3's Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chip and RGB cameras for full-color XR passthrough, but the thicker Quest 2 lenses with lower display resolution — all to target an alleged $299 price tag that'll appeal to budget buyers.

Meta announced its open-source Horizon OS earlier this year, with partners like ASUS ROG and Lenovo promising to make their own VR headsets. So it's possible they could join the stage at Connect to exhibit their new hardware — though we suspect Meta wouldn't want these companies to steal the Quest 3s' thunder.

In addition, we've heard credible reports that Meta intends to show off its Orion AR glasses prototype at Connect 2024. Allegedly, there is "internal pressure to ensure a high level of performance" with this prototype when it's first shown off to the public.

Caitlin Kalinowski, Meta's Head of AR Glasses Hardware, told us in an exclusive interview that they're working on AR glasses with "high field-of-view immersion" that will, in her words, trigger the same "Oh my God, WOW! I can't believe this" reactions as the original Oculus Rift when it first introduced a ton of people to VR.

While Meta's AR glasses won't be consumer-ready for years, Meta Connect 2024 attendees might have the chance to try the first-ever public prototype. In the meantime, Meta will probably spend time focusing on the Meta Ray-Ban Smart Glasses, which recently got a major multimodal AI upgrade.

Last year's event took place on Meta's campus in Menlo Park, California, while pre-pandemic Connects took place at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center. We'll find out later this year where to expect this next event, but non-Californians should be able to stream the keynote via Facebook or YouTube.