A pair of earbuds slipped into hundreds of millions of ears blocks out the roar of a packed subway car, and the single chip running a calculation 48,000 times every second that almost nobody knows is buried inside

The feature that converted many of those buyers was active noise cancellation, or ANC. The AirPods Pro 3, announced in September 2025, carries this same H2 chip forward with further advances in computational audio on top of it. Active Noise Cancellation in AirPods Pro 3 removes up to 2× more noise than the AirPods Pro 2, combining ultra-low-noise microphones with advanced computational audio and new foam-infused tips. Apple says the AirPods Pro 3 also offer up to 4× more active noise cancellation than the original AirPods Pro. AirPods Pro 3 also support Adaptive Audio, which blends ANC and Transparency mode, adjusting noise control automatically in response to your surroundings.