Meta CTO Discredits Zuckerberg: The Debut Flop Was Entirely Due to a Fatal Bug, AI Intelligence Is Lackluster, and Voice Interaction Completely Collapsed

“Poor planning, setup, and testing! Meta's CTO is overpaid, which doesn't match his skills and management abilities at all.” Some netizens commented like this. Others sneered, “This demonstration successfully shows that the technology is not yet mature. It's not a blue screen of death.”

Just last week at the Meta Connect developer conference, Meta released three new smart glasses. However, the on - site demonstration that was supposed to showcase the “future experience” kept going wrong.

On stage, Zuckerberg failed to connect a WhatsApp video call with CTO Andrew Bosworth and had to awkwardly abandon the demonstration. In another demonstration, food blogger Jack Mancuso, wearing Ray - Ban Meta glasses, repeatedly asked, “What should I do first?” but the AI couldn't give the correct recipe answer. Eventually, the demonstration was forced to stop. Finally, Zuckerberg could only smile bitterly and say, “Ironically, you spend years developing the technology, and then you get stuck because of Wi - Fi on the day.”

However, Bosworth quickly clarified on Instagram later, denying Zuckerberg's statement. He admitted that it was not a Wi - Fi problem, nor was it due to the venue. Instead, it was Meta's own setup and mistakes.

Zuckerberg: “I don't know what happened”

This summer, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg made an ambitious declaration about the future of smart glasses. He said that he believes that one day, those who don't wear AI smart glasses (ideally his glasses) will find themselves at a “quite obvious cognitive disadvantage” compared to their relatives who wear them.

Meta's smart glasses may make you smarter, but they will definitely make you more embarrassed.

Last week, during the live keynote speech at the company's Connect developer conference, Zuckerberg demonstrated the newly released smart glasses. However, two consecutive major mistakes turned the on - site demonstration of the smart glasses into a “disaster scene.”

The first mistake happened just a few minutes after the evening event started. On stage, Zuckerberg connected with influencer Jack Mancuso, who was standing in a kitchen in the company's campus. The CEO instructed Mancuso to make steak sauce with the help of the artificial intelligence in the Ray - Ban Meta smart glasses. The AI could “see” the ingredients in front of him and talk to the chef through the speakers on the glasses' temples.

However, when Mancuso asked for help, the AI seemed to not understand what he was saying and didn't know how to answer. It told him that he had already mixed the ingredients - which he hadn't - even though Mancuso repeatedly asked the question “What should I do first?” Mancuso joked that it was the Wi - Fi's fault and then interrupted the demonstration, causing the audience to burst into laughter.

Jack Mancuso's demonstration session at the Meta Connect conference.

“It's okay,” Zuckerberg said with an embarrassed smile. “The irony of this is that you spend years on the technology, and then a little Wi - Fi issue gets you stuck on the day.” (It's worth noting that the network connection in other parts of the event seemed normal.)

In the next session, Zuckerberg played several well - produced but non - real - time short videos to showcase the company's new technologies in cooperation with Ray - Ban and Oakley brands.

Then, he introduced the company's new product - Meta Ray - Ban Display. It's a pair of smart glasses priced at $799. The right lens has a digital display that can float and show information in the user's field of vision and can be controlled through an attached wristband. So far, the product has received some positive reviews and is positioned as a new entry point to experience popular AI tools, such as real - time subtitles and translation. Zuckerberg said at the release, “This is a special moment. We can finally show a work that we've put a lot of effort into. I think it's completely different from any existing products.”

Immediately afterwards, he further hyped it up: “This is not a prototype. It's in stock. You can buy it in a few weeks.”

During the introduction, Zuckerberg also joked that he could use slides or do another live demonstration. The audience immediately shouted “Live!” Zuckerberg hesitated a bit but still agreed.

At the beginning of the demonstration, he successfully sent a message to CTO Andrew Bosworth using the wristband and synchronized the picture captured by the glasses' camera to the audience. But when Bosworth tried to make a video call, the ringtone rang, but the glasses couldn't connect. Zuckerberg could only say awkwardly: “What a pity. I don't know what happened.”

The second, third, and fourth incoming calls were still useless. Zuckerberg's glasses couldn't connect all the time. Finally, he could only say, “I really don't know how to explain this to you.” Eventually, Bosworth came on stage wearing his own glasses, and they fist - bumped to ease the awkwardness. Zuckerberg said, “We'll debug it later. You may rehearse this kind of demonstration a hundred times, but you can never predict what will happen on the spot.”

Considering that the new product is scheduled to be released on September 30th, Bosworth could only end with a bitter smile: “I guarantee that no one is more frustrated than me because now it's my team's turn to figure out why it malfunctioned on stage.”

CTO: It's a resource management and software error,

not a Wi - Fi problem

After the conference, Bosworth responded on Instagram about the new technology and the failure of the on - site demonstration. When talking about the failure, he explained that what caused the interruption of the food demonstration was not Wi - Fi but a mistake in resource management planning.

Bosworth explained, “When the food blogger said ‘Hey Meta, start Live AI,’ it activated the Live AI of all Ray - Ban Meta glasses on site. There were a lot of people in the building at that time. Obviously, this situation was different from the rehearsal. There were definitely not so many Ray - Ban Meta glasses gathered in one place during the internal preview.”

But this alone was not enough to cause the failure. Another reason for the malfunction was related to Meta's choice to route the Live AI traffic to the development server to ensure traffic isolation during the demonstration. Because during the demonstration, not only the operator in front of the camera but also all users (and their headsets) accessing the access points in the building were routed to the development server.

“That is to say, we almost launched a DDoS attack on ourselves during the demonstration.” DDoS, short for Distributed Denial of Service attack, refers to overwhelming a server or service with a large - scale traffic, causing it to slow down or become unavailable. At this conference, Meta's development server was not capable of handling the large - scale traffic from all the glasses in the building - the company only intended it to handle the demonstration traffic.

As for the failure of the WhatsApp call, it was due to a newly discovered bug.

Bosworth said that the smart glasses' display happened to enter the sleep state at the moment when the call came in. When Zuckerberg woke up the display, it didn't show the answer notification. The CTO pointed out that this was a ‘race condition’ bug, which means that when two or more processes that determine the result try to use the same resource at the same time, the timing is unpredictable and uncoordinated.

Bosworth emphasized, “We've never encountered this bug before. It appeared for the first time during the conference demonstration. Although it's been fixed now, the timing of its appearance was really bad.” Meta certainly has the ability to make functions like video calls work well. The company is “frustrated” that the bug appeared in public.

Despite many problems, Bosworth claimed that he wasn't worried that these failures would affect the product's prospects. “Of course, I don't want these situations to happen. But I know this product is very useful and of reliable quality. So please believe that this is just a failure in the demonstration, and the product itself is still good.”

Zuckerberg blamed it on Wi - Fi, but Bosworth “didn't buy it.” And when the CTO attributed the cause to resource management problems, netizens also didn't buy it.

Some netizens said bluntly that this demonstration just proved that the technology is not ready at all: “This demonstration successfully shows that the technology is not yet mature. It's not a blue screen of death. The recipe demonstration shows that the AI doesn't even understand basic concepts like ‘the first step.’ The video call shows that the control mechanism is very unstable. It's not just bad luck for Zuckerberg. Moreover, this thing is too intrusive - can you imagine all WhatsApp messages popping up in front of you no matter what you're doing? Don't make it sound so intelligent. If you really believe that AI is that smart, you're definitely going to be disappointed.”

Some netizens raised the issue to the design level: “So now, one user saying ‘Hey Meta’ can trigger all the surrounding devices? Who would design such a thing? Who would want to use it? This is worse than directly admitting ‘We messed up’!”

Some people scoffed at Meta's explanation: “I don't accept their explanation (and I'm not going to buy this product either). Latency won't cause the AI to give wrong answers. The blogger asked about the cooking steps, but the AI answered as if he had already completed half of it. When he asked again, the AI gave the exact same answer. A denial - of - service attack shouldn't cause this kind of error, unless their software logic is: if it can't generate a new answer, it repeats the previous one. But in that case, they also have a serious session management problem. For convenience, the development server may not have perfect user management, but they exposed it to the public... Wait for a crazy hacker attack at the next demonstration.”

He also criticized that the host interrupted the AI's answer several times during the demonstration, implying that even the company's own team thought it was too wordy. “Either optimize the answer mode or add a concise mode. Otherwise, interrupting your own product will only make the picture look worse.”

More people questioned Bosworth's behavior of using the development server for the demonstration.

Some netizens complained, “Throwing all the traffic to the development server is just asking for trouble. You could have added a few more rows of racks at the back to support it, but instead, you did a last - minute code push and threw away more than a decade of operation and maintenance experience. To be honest, you can tell at a glance that the people in the company who really understand adversarial thinking must be very angry about this operation.”

There were even more incisive comments: “People who really understand IT won't believe this explanation. A reliable operation and maintenance team would have set up a separate demonstration network long ago instead of piling all the traffic on the development server. Is this incompetence or lying? To be honest, it may be both.”

Some people also sneered, “Spent so much money on infrastructure, but can't even support the people in one building? There might be a big problem.” Another report showed that there were about 4,000 people at the venue this time, but it's not certain whether each person had such a pair of glasses.

In the eyes of netizens, Meta CTO's explanation not only failed to quell the doubts but also further exposed the team's weaknesses in architecture design, resource management, and operation and maintenance.

As Meta's Chief Technology Officer, Andrew Bosworth (nicknamed Boz) has been involved in the birth of almost all the company's key products. Since joining Facebook in 2006, he has led the development of core functions such as News Feed, the mobile advertising platform, the messaging system, the timeline, and Facebook groups, and also built the company's engineer training camp. In 2017, he promoted the establishment of Reality Labs, focusing on AR/VR and smart hardware. Now he is in charge of hardware strategies such as Quest and Ray - Ban Meta smart glasses. It can be said that Boz is one of the most important “product promoters” in Meta's history.

However, in response to the explanation of this demonstration failure, some netizens said bluntly, “Poor planning, configuration, and testing! Meta's CTO gets such a high salary, which doesn't match his abilities and management level at all.”

From a meritorious CTO who “built a trillion - dollar advertising machine” to the focus of public opinion who “can't even control a product demonstration,” Boz's role transformation is quite thought - provoking. The netizens' sarcasm also reflects a reality: past glory cannot automatically translate into success in a new field. For Meta, this failure of the smart glasses demonstration not only reveals that the product is still not mature but also makes the outside world re - evaluate the executive team's execution ability and reliability.

Reference links:

https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/19/meta-cto-explains-why-the-smart-glasses-demos-failed-at-meta-connect-and-it-wasnt-the-wi-fi/

https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/comments/1nlo6ur/meta_cto_explains_why_the_smart_glasses_demos/

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/09/21/023248/glitches-humiliated-zuck-in-smart-glasses-launch-meta-cto-explains-what-happened

This article is from the WeChat public account “AI Frontline”, written by Hezikele and Tina, and published by 36Kr with authorization.