M.G. Siegler • #airpods • May 8, 2026

EyePods

AirPods with cameras aren't to take pictures, but to let Siri "see"...

We may not have to wait much longer for Apple's first AI wearable, it seems:

Apple Inc. has reached the late stages of development for new AirPods with built-in cameras, a significant milestone for what will likely be its first wearable device designed for the artificial intelligence era.

The project has entered a phase where prototypes feature a near-final design and capabilities, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The earbuds, which rely on cameras to see the space surrounding a user and provide information, are in advanced testing, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the work is still under wraps.

This is perhaps yet another promising sign that Apple believes their deal with Google will provide an actually viable and perhaps even impressive Siri this time. FAMOUS LAST WORDS, yes. But I remain cautiously optimistic here.

Of course, Gurman later couches the report noting that Apple could push out any launch further if the AI to power such features isn't up to snuff yet (and it sounds like they had initially targeted this device for the first half of this year, but well, the Siri situation is creating headaches for a lot of groups at Apple). Anyway, unless Apple has somehow managed to muck up Gemini with their own distillation, we should be good to go. Gemini can do what it sounds like Apple would like these AirPods with cameras to do right now. And actually has been able to for years, dating back to Google Lens.

Also, Apple already has similar capabilities built into iOS with "Visual Intelligence" which leverages, yes, Google. But that's their Image Search API, this is different. It's more similar to leveraging ChatGPT as they also do right now, but again, this is now going to be Siri itself, powered by Gemini under-the-hood, doing this, it seems. Oh yes, and from your AirPods, not your iPhone camera.

The cameras essentially act as eyes for the Siri digital assistant and aren’t designed to take photos or video. These components — located in both the right and left earbuds — allow the device to capture visual information in low resolution. Other than longer stems to accommodate the cameras, the product will resemble the AirPods Pro 3.

This makes sense since trying to take pictures from your ears would undoubtedly result in shitty pictures. So it's more like having eyes looking out from your jawline, which is still a bit odd, but close enough to your actual eyes that it should make for an interesting feature. As a man who rocks a beard that can grow quite robust at times, I have long been worried about it getting in the way of such a rumored feature, but presumably the AI can sort that out? Or Apple's design prowess – hence the stems on this version of the AirPods getting a bit longer again to accommodate the cameras. Or I guess I can just shave?¹

The idea is to let users ask questions about an item they might be looking at. For instance, they could be facing food ingredients and ask what they should cook for dinner. It’s a similar experience to what someone gets from uploading photos in AI services like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or the iPhone’s own Visual Intelligence function.

While AirPods with cameras to take pictures made no sense to me (just as the Apple Watch with cameras made no sense to me), the Visual Intelligence context actually makes a lot of sense to me. Clearly, Apple knows that they have a unique advantage here thanks to their devices being in billions of hands, which is why they're revamping the feature in the iPhone as well to be more prominent. While Apple may be behind in the current state of AI, if they can start ingesting real time imagery from hundreds of millions of devices around the world well... that's a data set that perhaps only Samsung (and by extension, Google) can match. But those brands won't be as trusted as Apple is here to have cameras on your face.

Speaking of:

Apple also aims to address privacy concerns from people who don’t want to be filmed by gadgets — an issue for smart glasses as well. The company has built a small LED light into the earbuds that will turn on when visual data is being fed into the cloud. Given the small size of earbuds, it’s unclear how visible the light actually will be.

AirPods are ubiquitous enough that most people at first won't think twice about seeing a slightly different version. But that could change fast if this version becomes ubiquitous and people start to realize that these are cameras. There's been surprisingly little backlash against the Ray-Ban Meta smartglasses to date – though there's some, and some growing concerns – especially relative to the "glasshole" days of old. But all of this feels one incident away from becoming a problem. And it sounds like Apple could soon be bucketed into this group as well soon. It's a risk, but clearly worth it for the functionality.

One more thing: It sounds like these AirPods with cameras specifically will not be used to add more/new gesture controls into Apple's device ecosystem. That's a mild surprise as there had been previous reports about such functionality (which made the camera system in AirPods make more sense than again, taking pictures). But perhaps Apple is just focused on one thing at a time here.