On Audio Intelligence and amplifying Accessibility’s Steep Climb
At its press event at Apple Park, Apple on Wednesday announced the Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4. One of the marquee features of the refreshed devices is called Audio Intelligence, which Apple describes as “a brand-new class of Apple Intelligence features that use the microphones of Apple Watch, the power of Apple silicon, and on-device and cloud-based AI models to help you detect sounds, identify music, and stay present and engaged—all while protecting your privacy at every step.” There are four pieces of Audio Intelligence—Sound Recognition, Music Recognition with Shazam, Live Rewind, and Siri Recap—and Apple says the latter two will launch in beta “later this year.”
During the presentation—which I watched from my new home this year instead of in Cupertino as usual because life has happened to me in 2026—Apple explicitly said one facet of Audio Intelligence, Sound Recognition, was built with the Deaf and hard-of-hearing community in mind. The feature can alert someone via their wrist when, for example, an alarm goes off or the doorbell rings. As a CODA, Sound Recognition strikes me as a far more elegant solution to those I observed in yesterday, when my parents’ bed was outfitted with a vibrating motor to wake up my dad in the morning before work, or when our doorbell flashed a pulse of light whenever someone rang the doorbell of our apartment. Apple is obviously doing product marketing here, but that doesn’t mean their language is wrong or exaggerated to power the hype machine. On the contrary, that the company is promoting Audio Intelligence, and thus Sound Recognition, as meant for the masses means accessibility is part of parcel of the Apple Watch story. This is not an insignificant detail.
Since Audio Intelligence was announced, the internet has been rife with takes about how Apple Watch will now always be listening to the wearer, as though it were eavesdropping. The Audio Intelligence functionality, many people have posited, feels creepy and unnecessary and undermines Apple’s institutional stance on privacy. In and of itself, it’s eminently reasonable to cast view askew at these features even knowing Apple’s privacy promise. Where this reaction does become problematic lies in the macro; the notion that our devices are surreptitiously listening to us is a way for Big Tech to play Big Brother and hoover up all of the most sensitive pieces of information about our lives is societal. It’s endemic. It’s why a lot of people refuse to use Echo devices or HomePods in their homes because they truly believe Alexa and Siri, respectively, were created to be the technological equivalent of the CIA or something. Again, it isn’t unreasonable to be paranoid about privacy and expect it be respected—the problem is, genuinely good use cases for, say, Alexa or Audio Intelligence, are wholly overshadowed by this Apple-made-Apple Watch-creepy perspective.
It does disabled people a gross disservice—and the media, of which I admittedly am a part, perpetuates it.
The collateral damage it does to accessibility awareness is, frankly, pretty shitty. The Blind and low vision community has, by and large, embraced Meta’s Ray-Bans smart glasses—but all that’s ever talked about is how wearers could be recording you. Look, I get it—accessibility and privacy aren’t mutually exclusive concepts. It’s complicated. What frustrates me is how doom and gloom clearly is more newsworthy than assistive technology. Accessibility coverage is yet again left to be patronized and cast aside for ostensibly “bigger” issues, in a similar vein to how Apple’s latest operating systems get picked apart on blogs and in podcasts without nary a word about the accessibility features destined for the updates that are announced literal weeks before WWDC comes and goes. I’m not saying Siri AI is neither impressive nor important. I’m saying it’s ironic the Apple community fawns over it while simultaneously glossing over how Apple Intelligence is powering the new VoiceOver, both of which are shipping in the same iOS 27.
As a lifelong person with disabilities, I assure you it’s utterly exhausting constantly feeling like you must justify your own existence. Sure, I can write stories like this one which shed light on the potentialities for Audio Intelligence. Live Rewind and Siri Recap could be a real boon for those with certain cognitive conditions to better remember things. Siri AI in the new AirPods can make remembering things more accessible too. All of this, yet most people are only going to focus on the things which could potentially doom us all. If it’s not Global Accessibility Awareness Day, nobody wants to hear about it. Indeed, the disability community is relegated to “364 days of global accessibility oblivion,” as GAAD co-founder Joe Devon once told me. The early response to Audio Intelligence has been a sobering reminder of that notion.
I don’t know how to square these circles. My voice carries only so far, but I never stop shouting.
