Meta has unveiled its roadmap for the next four years regarding the development of its augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) hardware. The company is set to release its first pair of smart glasses in 2025, which will be accompanied by a “neural interface” smartwatch, according to primary reports from The Verge.

In addition to the smart glasses, Meta is also planning to release its first pair of full-fledged AR glasses in 2027 — with its CEO Mark Zuckerberg predicting that these glasses will eventually be as widely used as mobile phones.

The announcement was made during a presentation to thousands of employees in Meta’s Reality Labs division on Tuesday, which despite Zuckerberg’s enthusiasm has been one of the most costly departments of the company, netting operating losses of $13.7 billion USD in 2022.

Meta’s VR efforts were also discussed during the presentation, with employees being told that the flagship Quest 3 headset will be released later this year. The headset is expected to be two times thinner, at least twice as powerful, and cost slightly more than the current Quest 2 headset. The Quest 3 will feature mixed reality experiences that don’t fully immerse the wearer, thanks to front-facing cameras that pass through video of the real world.

In the same presentation, Mark Rabkin, the company’s vice president for VR, shared that Meta has sold nearly 20 million Quest headsets to date, which despite heavy losses does prove that there is interest in the tech.

With remote work skyrocketing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, both VR and AR technologies seem to be more suited to commercial use cases at the time of writing, rather than the consumer approach Meta initially pursued with its Horizon Worlds.

The reason these technologies, particularly advanced AR glasses, are so important to tech companies like Meta is that whoever makes the first pair will likely capture a decent share of the emerging market.

By being ahead of the curve, Meta will have the opportunity to change the way consumers interact with technology, as well as reshape the way digital information is consumed and received.

Should the technology become as heavily adopted as smartphones, Meta stands to produce a variety of new revenue streams, including controlling the ad space, application development, and much more.

In other news, Amazon is rumored to be launching an NFT marketplace in April.