Why Apple Might Put Cameras Into Its Next AirPods

If you were to ding Apple’s privacy credentials in one move, you could do worse than to launch AirPods with cameras. Whether or not they come to market, all of Apple’s existing ubiquitous earbuds would become a question mark for everyone in their vicinity: Are they recording me right now?

According to Bloomberg’s well-sourced Mark Gurman, Apple has designed camera-equipped AirPods to allow Siri “to see” the wearer’s surroundings. They’re in the late stages of testing with Apple employees as part of an “AI device push.”

However, a source who asked to remain anonymous because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the matter tells WIRED that Apple will likely delay the camera AirPods. While the hardware is ready, Siri's visual intelligence is not up to par. Apple executives are also worried that the company is introducing a significant privacy risk with earbuds' cameras without compelling use cases. Apple did not immediately respond to WIRED's request for comment.

That brings us to the main question: What advantages would Apple be seeking by adding cameras to its AirPods—especially at a time when consumers' privacy concerns about casual surveillance through smart glasses' cameras, doorbell cams, and even phone cameras are on the rise?

Navigation, Shopping, and a Smarter Siri

According to Bloomberg, these AirPods have larger stems to house low-resolution cameras—they act as Siri’s eyes as visual context for spoken requests. They’re not built to capture photos and video, like smart glasses. A few use cases mentioned in the report include landmark-based navigation and identifying foods to help with grocery shopping.

“Vision-based location is the most obvious one,” says Anshel Sag, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. “It's got to be a very passive kind of experience, and that's why I think using it for location-based accuracy, to rectify GPS, makes sense.” Google is also using cameras in its upcoming smart glasses to understand a user's bearings when using walking navigation with Google Maps.

Other potential features will be familiar to anyone up to date on smart glasses. Peter Richardson, vice president at Counterpoint Research, likes the idea of standing in front of the fridge and asking the AI assistant what to make for dinner, as an example in which data from multiple devices could work together.

“That’s something that requires visual information,” Richardson says. “There’s lots of context: Is it the middle of the week? Have I got training in the morning? Is it a Friday when maybe I like to have a glass of wine? Are my friends over?” Similarly, combined with the Apple Watch, visual data could make Siri more intuitive. “If I’m in Paddington Station and I’m running, maybe I’m late for a train, so maybe don’t send a call to me,” he says.

As with many niche wearables, there are also some interesting accessibility applications. 9to5mac suggests that an all-seeing Siri via AirPods, perhaps with infrared capabilities in the mix, could enhance the capabilities of Apple’s Image Explorer and Voice Over features for visually impaired users. In all these scenarios, a key piece of information that we still don’t have is whether the cameras would be forward-facing or world-facing. Gurman indicates that a “small LED light” will turn on when visual data is being fed into the cloud.

Visual Data for AI

At first glance, the reasoning here might be obvious: a real-world data grab. As Big Tech AI model makers and enterprising startups push further beyond text-based large language models, into imaging, mapping, and robotics, Apple’s popular, affordable accessory could be transformed into the 2026 equivalent of Google’s StreetView cars.

“Getting information in, visual or even acoustic, that’s new information that’s never really been used to train AI,” Richardson says. “But it’s only useful if it can then be used to train it.”

Apple doesn’t have a foundational model to compete with OpenAI's GPT or Google's Gemini, hence its partnerships with those companies. “I actually think that they will still develop their own models, so this could give them the data to do that,” Sag says. “For most intelligent AI devices, having vision is extremely important. But Apple is so privacy-conscious, and that's been a big part of their marketing for quite some time now, that it's a very difficult tightrope for them to balance.”

If Apple were to share visual data with Google—Apple made a deal with Google to embed Gemini into Apple products—then to honor its industry-leading privacy policies, Richardson suggests that Apple would need to implement rigorous anonymization and “radical cleaning” of personal, nontrivial data from near-future AirPods. One alternative is for Apple to use the low-res camera feeds for basic contextual cues, processed on-device on the earbuds or the user’s iPhone, to make Siri more capable. (Whether this is technically possible to a high enough standard remains to be seen).

Then there’s Private Cloud Compute, Apple’s server-based AI system, which uses a more complex LLM to handle heavier requests. This operates via Apple’s cloud: running entirely on custom Apple Silicon servers, in PCC-specific data centers and with end-to-end encryption. The fate of this Private Cloud Compute infrastructure over the next five years, versus the speed and size of hyperscalers, will be a key focus of decisionmaking for Apple CEO John Ternus, impacting everything from AI to privacy to climate commitments.

Getting to Glasses

The final reason for Cupertino to dabble in camera-laden earbuds is to get designers, engineering teams, and customers ready for the long-rumored Apple glasses, which could launch with two built-in cameras. With AirPods at one end and the Vision Pro at the other, Apple might be approaching the smart glasses problem from both directions: low-cost accessory and high-end home system.

The AirPods would be “the entry level for what they would consider a multimodal AI,” Sag says. “Just having the sensors, for even Gemini to have access to, will become more useful. I think smart glasses continue to be the right target because they have that vision aspect, but also they're close to your ears and mouth.”

Qiran Ju, a senior analyst at Omdia, is more bullish, viewing this as a logical step in research and development; AirPods are “more context-aware than a phone, but potentially lighter and more familiar than glasses,” Ju says. He also sees them fitting naturally into Apple’s “broader spatial computing strategy.” He points out that Apple has promoted spatial photos and videos for the Vision Pro and that camera-enabled AirPods could capture “first-person immersive image and video”—if this functionality is enabled.

There’s a more cynical view that Apple is spending its cash to secure patents for all sorts of wearable, post-smartphone designs and features to shut out competitors. The biggest mystery is what exactly will materialize from the collaboration between Jony Ive and OpenAI. Aside from a rumored OpenAI phone with an advanced image signal processor, will we see a smart GPT earbud? An AI pendant? An audio product? Smart glasses? Or all of the above in one ecosystem?

The Copycats

Apple can legitimize whole categories of consumer tech before it has even released a product: Rumors and leaks are enough to nudge hardware road maps around the world. If we don’t see a copycat cohort of camera-enabled AirPods junk this year, they’ll show up at next year’s CES, predicts Sag.

For Ju, based in Shanghai, the concept was already in the air on a recent trip to Shenzhen. “This exact topic came up in several meetings,” he says. Chinese companies, including the Lenovo-backed Guangfan Technology, VibeLens (Shenzhen Ruibao Intelligent Technology), and Mozin have “already launched or explored camera-enabled earbuds” and headsets.

There are practical reasons why adding cameras to AirPods may not be the smartest move. One is battery life: AirPod