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After two years of the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak, millions were pushed out of the office, and Apple CEO Tim Cook says that the role of remote work has yet to be finalized.

"We're running the mother of all experiments because we don't know," Cook said in response to a question about the biggest changes taking place in the workplace right now. Cook was speaking at the TIME 100 symposium in New York.

"We're running a pilot and trying to find a place that makes the best of both of these worlds," he added.

Cook said his personal preference was the "serendipity" of in-person meetings, but, he said that virtual interactions are "not inferior, just different."

Apple has been serious about returning its staff to the office in contrast to its competitors. The company's former machine learning director, Ian Goodfellow, publicly cited its policy as the reason he left the company back in May.

"I believe strongly that more flexibility would have been the best policy for my team," Goodfellow told The Verge's Zoë Schiffer at the time.

In referring to video chat applications, Cook mentioned Zoom and Cisco's WebEx.

"We could be the first to say the starting point is likely wrong and will take tweaks," he said.

Though he declined to comment on Apple's forays into augmented reality, he said the technology "stands a chance of enhancing our conversation, of enhancing our connection, instead of replacing it."