A really underrated feature of the AirPods pro is the ability to make the transparency mode louder than reality, so what you hear through your AirPods is louder than what you hear without them. On top of that, a recent update added the option to boost speech frequencies and reduce background noise. This is likely what he's doing. It's not as good as hearing aids would be, but it's pretty fantastic for something like this. I have the same problem processing speech and over the last few years I've also lost some hearing. Talking to people with masks is a literal nightmare, especially in stores where there's also a partition between me and them.