Qualcomm wants your next pair of earbuds to be an AI assistant you talk to, not just something you listen through. Its new Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2 platform combines premium audio with on-device AI and its own Wi-Fi connection, and it is built for new kinds of wearables too, including earbuds with cameras and audio glasses.
"Our research tells us that up to 70% of users want advanced AI capabilities in their wearable devices," said Ziad Asghar, senior vice president and general manager of XR, wearables and personal AI at Qualcomm Technologies. He expects people to talk to AI assistants through natural conversation, often without a screen involved.
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Twice the AI, smaller and more efficient
Qualcomm says Sound Elite Gen 2 has up to twice the AI capability of its Snapdragon S7 Gen 1 Sound platform, with 128 GOPS of peak AI compute against 64, enough to run several AI features at the same time. It also claims a chip area up to 30% smaller, which should help brands build smaller earbuds, and up to 40% lower power draw when idle on Wi-Fi. That power figure comes from Qualcomm's design simulations rather than finished chips, so real products may differ.
Wi-Fi in your ears
The bigger change is connectivity. The platform has built-in micro-power Wi-Fi 6E, so earbuds can reach the cloud directly instead of relying on your phone for everything. Qualcomm is pairing this with Snapdragon Sound Apps and Agents, which gives wearables access to AI assistants, services and content that can keep improving after you buy them. The examples Qualcomm gives include real-time translation, help based on what is happening around you, and hearing tuned to you personally.
Sound and voice upgrades
- Qualcomm aptX Lossless for high-quality music playback
- Qualcomm XPAN, which extends the connection beyond normal Bluetooth range for uninterrupted audio across devices
- 5th generation Qualcomm ANC (active noise cancellation) and Qualcomm cVc voice technology, with support for multi-microphone designs, for clearer calls and more reliable voice commands in noisy places
- Snapdragon Audio Sense, new microphones and algorithms that help devices pick out voices and surrounding sound more clearly
Cleaner voice pickup matters beyond phone calls. If you use your earbuds as a microphone for voice notes or quick videos on a busy street, better speech capture could make a real difference, though how much will depend on how each brand tunes its product.
Earbuds with cameras
Sound Elite Gen 2 supports earbuds, headphones, open-ear and hybrid designs, camera-equipped earbuds, audio glasses and future wearables that combine audio, vision and AI. Qualcomm says the cameras on such devices are there to help the assistant understand your surroundings rather than to take photos. At Snapdragon Summit, audio brand Cleer showed an early concept of this kind of wearable. Cameras worn on the body raise the same privacy questions as smart glasses, which we looked at in Meta smart glasses and Malaysia's missing voyeur law.
What it means for Malaysia
This is a platform for brands to build on rather than a product you can buy, and Qualcomm has not named launch dates or prices. It is offering reference designs to help brands prototype and bring products to market faster. Open-ear designs are already catching on locally, such as the soundcore AeroClip 2, and brands have started putting dedicated AI chips in earbuds, like soundcore's Thus chip. Sound Elite Gen 2 suggests the next step is earbuds that do far more than play music. Full details are on Qualcomm's announcement page.
