Lorde criticizes AI glasses during Mad Cool Festival set in Madrid

Lorde used part of her Mad Cool Festival set in Madrid to criticize AI glasses, turning a pop performance into a warning about devices built to record, listen and respond at all times. “Increasingly in our world, it gets harder and harder to know what is real,” Lorde said onstage.

Videos shared on social media captured the remarks as she performed on Thursday, July 9, 2026, at the four-day festival, which ran from July 8 to July 11. Mad Cool’s 2026 lineup also included Jennie, Florence + The Machine, Twenty One Pilots and Pulp, placing Lorde in one of the summer’s most visible festival bills.

The criticism carried extra weight because Ray-Ban was among Mad Cool’s sponsors, and Ray-Ban is tied to Meta’s smart eyewear push. That overlap made the moment feel less like a stray swipe at a gadget and more like a challenge to a consumer technology category that has moved quickly from novelty to mainstream aspiration.

Meta and EssilorLuxottica launched the next generation of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses on September 27, 2023, adding live streaming, built-in Meta AI, a camera, audio and upgraded microphones and speakers. The company’s product pages place the glasses squarely in the always-on wearable category Lorde appeared to be rejecting, one that can capture a scene and respond with little friction from the wearer.

The privacy debate around AI glasses has centered on people outside the frame. Meta says the glasses were developed with privacy in mind and gives wearers controls over sharing and device settings, but critics keep pressing the same question: when a camera is built into a pair of glasses, who around the wearer has actually agreed to be recorded? That concern has only grown as the line expands into new styles and generations.

Lorde’s Madrid remarks showed how much resistance remains when tech companies sell convenience and style, while artists and audiences keep asking what constant recording does to shared spaces. In a crowded festival crowd, the issue is not just whether the glasses work well, but whether people want their live moments filtered through hardware designed to collect them.