Does the Apple MacBook Air M1 need an antivirus

've never used any 3rd party antivirus program on any Mac. See: https://www.apple.com/macos/security/

As @FoxFirth has mentioned - Never ever use AV Software on Macintosh Computer. Totally not needed by a Trusted Contributor

Listen to foxfifth. You do not need any antivirus. However, if you wish, you may use malwarebytes. It has a good reputation on this community. And malwarebytes is not anti virus.