No, it’s not about sound replication, that is the easy part. AirPods have both really good active noise canceling, and a transparency mode that does completely lag-free filtered pass thru, meaning that you can hear everything around you and follow a podcast at the same time. They even switch between ANC and transparency if you start speaking to someone. Nobody has anything similar except on paper, everyone else does it with so much lag that it’s useless.

Can’t say anything about the regular airpods since I haven’t tried them, but the Pros are unparalleled. Impossible to offer anything near that kind of transparency mode without custom silicon, the competition is stuck with what they can get off the shelf.