A video discovered in Apple's macOS Tahoe 26.7 Release Candidate offers what could be the first look at the rumored camera-equipped AirPods, with the clip showing a man wearing the earbuds while holding up a book so that Visual Intelligence can read the title. The findings were first spotted and reported by MacRumors in the beta software.
The leaked clip shows the AirPods from the back only, and no indicator lights are visible from that angle. The design appears to be a slightly thicker version of the AirPods Pro 3, matching earlier predictions from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman that the devices would feature longer stems to house cameras and LED lights that signal when data uploads to the cloud.
A Siri voice-over in the video describes Visual Intelligence as making "your world savable," telling viewers they can ask to save something they like for later. Gurman has previously reported that the camera-equipped AirPods are meant to capture "visual information in low resolution" and serve as eyes for Apple's AI features, potentially enabling turn-by-turn directions or answers about the wearer's surroundings.
The AirPods' cameras reportedly aren't designed for taking photos or videos, positioning the product against camera-equipped AI wearables like Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses. With details about the AirPods with cameras still slim, the appearance of demo footage in Apple's OS betas suggests the new AirPods could arrive alongside the improved Siri expected in September with the next iPhone generation.
