That’s correct, but companies like Apple have put profits above employees for a long time. Granted, high pay and good benefits have been a path to attract talent that would increase profits, but profit has always been the motive.

So I don’t think you’re wrong that they might have a big layoff, but it’s not related to adding more AI into the product.

That said, having good, well integrated, local AI features that are optional to use are purely a plus for the customer. Local AI Siri, local AI multitasking (e.g. “insert a summary of that messages thread into a new draft email”), local AI reminders of things you might have forgotten, etc.

That’s probably not exactly what’s going on here though.