Apple wants to hire AI staff in the UK, says CEO Tim Cook Credit: Shutterstock / John Gress Media Inc

Apple has claimed it wants to hire more artificial intelligence (AI) staff in the UK at a time when the industry is facing major cuts across the board. 

Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, replied to a question about AI ans jobs in the UK by the PA news agency: “We’re hiring in that area, yes, and so I do expect [investment] to increase.”

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Big Tech has cut thousands of jobs since 2022, with layoffs continuing throughout 2023.

Epic Games, the creator of hit videogame Fortnite, announced on Thursday that it was cutting 16% of its workforce, equating to around 900 employees, Bloomberg reported.

Epic announced the cuts in a memo to staff, according to someone close to the matter.

Cook has criticised the spout of mass layoffs across the industry, claiming that any layoffs at Apple would be as a “last resort”.

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“I view that as a last resort and, so, mass layoffs is not something that we’re talking about at this moment,” Cook said in an interview with CNBC.

Despite mass layoffs seen from tech giants like Meta, Amazon and Google – hiring and investment into AI has been on the rise.

Hiring in generative AI peaked in December 2022 with 3598 hires globally, the month following the release of OpenAI's generative AI chatbot released, according to GlobalData's Job database.

The wildly popular chatbot gecorded 100 million monthly active users in January, as people flocked to the app for help with editing documents, creating code and more. 

Throughout 2023, generative AI hiring stayed at a steady climb until a huge spike 3,117 hires in June, falling just below the peak of December 2022.