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Picture yourself on a packed train during rush hour, a cacophony of announcements, chatter, and the low hum of the tracks surrounding you. You’re taking an urgent call. You lean in, whispering softly into your headset, barely audible to the person sitting inches away, yet your voice comes through crisp and clear on the other end. It might sound like noise-cancellation on steroids, but it’s possible thanks to an AI-powered headphone that lets you whisper entire conversations while the headphone does the rest, amplifying your voice.

Designer: Skyted

The magic here lies in how Skyted handles sound—yours and everyone else’s. It relies on a highly precise microphone array that can even hear whispers, along with an AI that helps enhance the. Yes, it sounds a bit sci-fi, but it’s surprisingly intuitive in practice. It uses an intelligent microphone built into the front that’s designed to capture even the slightest directional audio, along with a powerful AI algorithm that works hard to amplify your whisper while canceling out pretty much all kinds of external noise. What kind of cancellation are we talking about here? Well, I was in a noisy convention center and the wearer was whispering dialogues 2 feet away from me. I could hear every single word crystal clear.

The result? Privacy, even in the noisiest, most public places. Whether you’re whispering your side of a confidential work call or dictating notes for a project, no one around you will hear more than a faint murmur. And those on the other end of the line? They’ll think you’re calling from a library, even if you’re smack in the middle of a bustling airport terminal.

What really makes this device fascinating is how flexible it is. Skyted feels tailor-made for the remote worker who doesn’t want to be tethered to their home office or the podcaster tired of lugging around recording equipment. It’s also a game-changer for anyone who frequently takes calls in noisy environments—think salespeople, journalists, or even students navigating group projects in crowded cafés. And gamers, too, might finally find a headset that lets them coordinate their next big raid without worrying about leaking every background noise in their room. Heck, I can totally envision a phone with this technology too, so I don’t need to yell when I get a phone call in a noisy environment.

The headset looks unassuming until you actually try it out. I had the chance to demo a unit, with someone wearing it and whispering to me. Without the Skyted, I couldn’t hear a word of what he said. However, as soon as he switched the Skyted headset on, the microphone did a phenomenal job catching his audio and AI-enhancing it to make it crystal-clear. Skyted’s team said that the headphone was just step one, the next step is to build this tech into smartphones so that you can answer calls without people around you hearing what you’re saying.

The design looks admittedly retro, but i’s got a clean, streamlined vibe that is comfortable to wear and gets the job done. It’s lightweight and portable, which is crucial for something you’ll be tossing into your bag between meetings or after a long commute. It’s also designed to stay comfortable for long periods—a feature that’ll matter to anyone who spends hours on calls or gaming marathons.

Surprisingly, the tech has roots in aerospace technology. Developed with support from ONERA and Airbus Développement, it takes inspiration from systems built to handle the relentless noise and acoustics of aircraft cabins. That lineage shows up in how flawlessly it filters sound and isolates voices, even in settings that would make most headsets crumble. It’s the kind of crossover you don’t expect, like Bose, the audio company, also making suspension for vehicles. Or Yamaha, being equally good at making motorbikes and pianos.

Although Skyted hasn’t officially announced a price, it’s gearing up for a launch that aims to make this technology broadly available. Considering its polished performance and the excitement it generated at CES, it feels like a strong contender to shake up the headset market.

The post Future of Noise Cancellation at CES 2025: This AI-Powered Mic Headset Can Even Hear You Whisper first appeared on Yanko Design.