Apple is currently reportedly active in developing a new variant of AirPods, which comes equipped with a built-in camera. With this move, when users wear them, in addition to playing audio, the camera can also be used to understand the world around them, thus providing better context when asking Apple Intelligence about something involving the environment.
Roughly speaking, it is seen as a quick alternative by Apple to smart glasses offered by other competitors. For your information, previously, Apple has introduced a special feature called Visual Intelligence, allowing users to obtain information based on their environment. AirPods with a camera are expected to integrate this support into it.
However, this device is not expected to be introduced until 2027 – which is about two years away.