A demo video that was never meant to see the light of day was found sitting inside the system files of the macOS Tahoe 26.7 release candidate, dug up by a sharp-eyed user. According to MacRumors, the video accidentally leaked Apple's unannounced camera-equipped AirPods, with the footage circulating after being reposted by X user @aaronp613.
In the video, a man wearing AirPods asks Siri to remember a book he's currently borrowing. Siri responds with: "With Visual Intelligence, your world becomes saveable. See something you like? Just ask me to save it for later." In other words, these AirPods can send low-resolution footage captured by the camera to Siri, which then describes whatever the user is looking at—a feature dubbed Visual Intelligence.
The video doesn't reveal exactly where the camera is positioned on the earbuds. The AirPods worn by the man in the clip look nearly identical to the current AirPods Pro, with the only noticeable difference being a slightly thicker stem. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman was first to report back in May that Apple was developing camera-equipped AirPods, but this leaked video marks the first time the public has seen an actual hands-on demo.
Privacy concerns naturally follow. Even if the camera only sends back low-res images, earbuds that can "see" a user's surroundings are essentially a form of surveillance device—something that could give plenty of users pause. Gurman has noted that these AirPods may include some kind of indicator light to signal when the camera is active, a basic design consideration for this type of wearable.
According to codename information found inside Tahoe 26.7, these camera-equipped AirPods carry the internal codename B790, which is different from another camera-equipped AirPods model (codenamed B798) that Gurman mentioned in a separate Bloomberg report as slated for a 2027 release. Since the demo video has already surfaced in macOS 26.7, this new model could very well make its official debut at Apple's iPhone 18 event next month, though no official date or pricing has been announced yet.
