Eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica SA, Meta Platforms' partner for its augmented-reality, AI-powered glasses, sees the emerging device category as a major draw, which could potentially replace smartphones one day.

CEO and Chairman Francesco Milleri said the company is expanding its production capacity for Meta Ray-Ban and other AI glasses to reach 10 million units annually by the end of next year, according to an interview with Bloomberg.

"Glasses, which have long been seen as prosthetics and later as fashion accessories, are poised to become the central device in people's lives, possibly replacing smartphones," Milleri said.

Milleri spoke about a future where hundreds of millions of smart glasses are interconnected, creating huge communities, and believes that only a collaborative model can maintain leadership in innovation and technology.

Paris-headquartered EssilorLuxottica is the owner of Ray-Ban, Oakley, and Persol brands.

Beyond smart glasses, the company is investing in medical technology, including AI applications in the clinical field - and even venturing beyond ophthalmology, Milleri said.

While the Meta collaboration generated an estimated 365 million euros (approximately $429 million) in revenue for EssilorLuxottica last year, the total is expected to approach 800 million euros this year and surpass 6 billion euros by 2030, according to estimates from Barclays, as quoted in a Bloomberg report.

Meta released its newest generation of AI glasses last month.

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