Apple’s own demo video shows AirPods with cameras using Visual Intelligence

Apple’s camera-equipped AirPods have shown up in the company’s own software. MacRumors found a demo video inside the macOS Tahoe 26.7 release candidate that Apple seeded on Monday, and it shows the earbuds using Visual Intelligence to read the cover of a book. MacRumors contributor Aaron Perris posted the clip on X.

Apple has not announced the product. But a finished, voiced-over tutorial sitting in a release candidate is a much stronger signal than a code string, and it fits Bloomberg’s report that these AirPods could launch as soon as September.

What the video shows

The clip is short. A person wearing AirPods holds up a book so the earbuds’ camera can see the title, and Siri’s voice explains the pitch: “With Visual Intelligence, your world becomes savable. See something you like? Just ask me to save it for later.”

That matches how the feature has been described in reports so far. The cameras give Siri a live view of what is in front of you, so you can ask about an object, a landmark, or some text and have Siri answer or save it, without pulling out your iPhone and pointing its camera. Apple has also built in a warning for when the earbuds are blocked, by hair for example: “To get the most accurate information about things in your environment, make sure AirPods are not covered.”

The earbuds in the video look close to the current AirPods Pro, and the cameras themselves are not obvious in the clip.

The code points to the same product

The macOS 26.7 RC also references the earbuds by their codename, B790, including a string about starting an “image stream” from the left bud. That is the same codename that turned up in iOS 27 beta code in July, where it handled two images from cameras on either side of the wearer’s head.

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported earlier this month that Apple has two camera AirPods projects. B790 is the further-along one and is listed internally as a candidate to ship this year. A more advanced model, B798, has slipped to 2027. Bloomberg had said back in May that the camera AirPods were in advanced testing, so the timeline has been tightening for a while.

What to expect at the September event

Gurman expects the earbuds to arrive as soon as September, which would put them at the same event as the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, and the foldable iPhone Ultra. Apple has not sent invitations yet, but the event usually lands in the second week of September.

According to his reporting, the buds use tiny infrared cameras in both earpieces, with a small LED that lights up when they are active. The cameras are not meant for photos or video; they exist to feed Visual Intelligence. Because of that, and because they should cost more than the $249 AirPods Pro 3, Gurman has said Apple is likely to call them AirPods Ultra rather than AirPods Pro 4.

The privacy questions are obvious. An LED indicator helps, but earbuds that can quietly look at a room are a harder sell in public than a phone camera you have to visibly point. Apple’s answer to that will matter as much as the feature itself when it finally puts these on stage.