Did Tim Cook hint at Apple developing AI glasses and camera wearables? What we know so far

Apple is usually tight-lipped about its product launches or generally anything that fans can expect from the tech giant. However, CEO Tim Cook seems to be dropping hints about the category of products that are next in line the company’s portfolio.

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Cook is suggesting that Apple is pushing towards AI wearables, built around Apple’s Visual Intelligence feature that scans the user’s environment for context to take action — sort of how Meta’s AI glasses work.

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On Apple’s recent earnings call, he singled out Visual Intelligence as "one of our most popular features".

"One of our most popular features is Visual Intelligence, which helps users learn and do more than ever with the content on their iPhone screen, making it faster to search, take action and answer questions across their apps," he said.

In a company-wide meeting, he also reportedly doubled down, saying Apple “unquestionably” has a “huge advantage” in AI, pointing to its 2.5 billion-device installed base and again spotlighting Visual Intelligence.

What's interesting is that this is not the first time Cook has dropped breadcrumbs before a major product launch, which makes this theory more plausible.

Back in 2013, years before the Apple Watch was unveiled, Cook said the “whole sensor field is going to explode.” At the time, Apple was quietly building what would become its first major new product category, hiring aggressively from the medical sensor industry. The watch didn’t launch as a medical lab on your wrist, but over time Apple added heart-rate monitoring, ECG, hypertension detection and sleep apnea alerts. The company is still reportedly working on noninvasive blood glucose monitoring.

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He did something similar ahead of the Vision Pro. For years, Cook talked up augmented and virtual reality even saying in 2016 that AR would one day be as essential as eating three meals a day. Apple eventually spent billions developing Vision Pro, unveiling it in 2023 and launching it in 2024.

The device hasn’t become mainstream yet. But it is clear that when Cook repeatedly emphasises a technology, it’s rarely accidental.

The company first rolled out Visual Intelligence on the iPhone 16 Pro in 2024 under Apple Intelligence, before expanding it to other devices. Right now, the feature lets users snap a photo or take a screenshot and ask questions about it via OpenAI’s ChatGPT. You can also run a reverse image search through Google if you’re trying to identify something.

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Gurman, in his latest newsletter, notes that Apple is developing its own visual models and intends to build this capability into a new crop of AI-first hardware. That includes upgraded AirPods, smart glasses and even a pendant-style wearable equipped with cameras and sensors that can sit around your neck. Earlier plans to add cameras to the Apple Watch have reportedly been put on hold.

At the basic level, think identifying what’s on your plate — breaking down ingredients and items from a quick snap. At a more advanced level, the device could guide you through tasks based on what it sees. Instead of telling you to walk 200 feet and turn right, it could tell you to go past that cafe and turn at the red building. It could also nudge you with reminders when you approach a specific object or place.