GoKawiilAs Tim Cook gets ready to hand over the job of Apple CEO to John Ternus, the future of Apple's product line feels as mysterious as ever. Folding phones, touchscreen Macs and maybe even robotic HomePads could all be on deck in the next couple of years. But also, a whole wave of AI wearables. And as Apple's WWDC developer conference looms, we still don't know about the plans for the AI that would be needed to make them work.
Reports of a trio of AI wearable devices have been circling for the last year, including smart glasses, a camera-equipped pendant and camera-enabled AirPods. Add to these the Apple Watch and annually updated iPhones that they all would use to connect with, and it's a lot of devices in the mix.
Watch this: Is Apple Finally Ready to Talk Future Wearables at WWDC? 04:13
While just about every other tech company on the planet can't stop talking about AI -- Google's I/O keynote last month was 2 hours of nonstop AI adoration and AI-powered smart glasses -- Apple's been pretty quiet on the subject after its lackluster launch of Apple Intelligence in 2024. However, the cat's already out of the bag on a key part of Apple's AI plans, with a Google Gemini partnership for Siri announced back in January.
Now Apple needs to spill the details on what a Gemini-infused Siri will look like in the real world -- and there's no better time than WWDC.
Glasses like Google and Samsung's upcoming models lean heavily on camera-aware AI that Apple doesn't have yet. Scott Stein/CNET
AI is a missing piece for the next devices, and current ones
I don't particularly love being enveloped in AI, or the resource drain both environmentally and economically that AI is causing right now. But a next generation of assistive wearable devices that Apple seems ready to build needs a different level of AI -- awareness via cameras, better voice responsiveness and the kind of deeper text and voice analysis that virtually all other major AI platforms already offer.
But Apple still hasn't built this advanced AI -- an AI that can run across all its devices, privately handle data in a way that won't disturb anyone and ideally do so without leading to more subscription hikes.
Apple could lean on AI running off its own hardware, an approach it's already emphasized with Apple Intelligence. Mac Mini hardware has already become a popular go-to for running local AI servers. As iPhone and Apple Watch chipsets get faster every year, there's more that Apple's wearables could theoretically do without needing to connect to the cloud at all.
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