AI startup partnered with the Canadian government in June on AI research and safety.
Toronto-based artificial intelligence (AI) company Cohere has signed a new, non-binding agreement with the Canadian government to help “transform” public sector operations with its technology.
The memorandum of understanding (MoU), jointly signed by federal AI minister Evan Solomon and government transformation minister Joël Lightbound, formalizes the government’s intention to deploy AI tools across the public service “to enhance operations” and to bolster Canada’s “commercial capabilities in using and exporting AI.”
Agreement comes amid the federal government’s push to leverage AI technology to boost productivity.
“By working with Canadian AI innovators like Cohere, we’re laying the groundwork for a more efficient, effective and productive public service while helping ensure that Canada remains competitive in this new digital era,” Solomon said in a statement.
BetaKit has reached out to Solomon’s office for more information on how the MoU will expand Canada’s commercial AI capabilities.
This builds on Cohere’s previous agreement with the feds, announced in June. That partnership focused on AI research and safety, particularly collaboration on AI research with the Canadian AI Safety Institute (CAISI). At the time, Cohere said this partnership also focused on “transforming” government operations with AI.
Founded in 2019 by former Google researchers, Cohere builds large-language models (LLMs) that power chatbots and other AI applications for companies and government agencies. Last week, the company announced it had raised $500 million USD at a $6.8 billion USD valuation, making it one of Canada’s highest-valued private tech companies.
The round coincided with the appointment of Canadian computer scientist and former Meta vice-president Joelle Pineau as Cohere’s first chief AI officer and former Uber CFO Francois Chadwick as the company’s first CFO. Cohere also promoted chief scientist Phil Blunsom to replace outgoing CTO Saurabh Baji.
Cohere’s recently introduced flagship workspace platform, North, allows users to create custom AI agents that it claims can improve human efficiency by automating certain tasks.
RELATED: Cohere bringing AI into public sector through partnerships with Canadian, UK governments
“Accelerating AI adoption will deliver massive productivity and efficiency gains to enhance public services and modernize operations,” the company claimed in a press release.
There have so far been mixed reports about the impact of AI tools on productivity gains. Despite AI adoption doubling in the past year, recent data from Statistics Canada shows Canada’s labour productivity increased just 0.2 percent last quarter, while the services industry, which includes technology companies, saw productivity slide by 0.5 percent.
Since the MoU is non-binding, it is not necessarily indicative of a business contract with Cohere, but rather provides a roadmap for future collaboration. The federal government has not yet awarded any contracts to Cohere, according to what’s available on the CanadaBuys and Open Government contract award databases.
Cohere’s models are already being tested within the federal government by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada’s (ISED) IT unit as part of a new AI tool called ParlBrief, The Logic reported last month. ParlBrief is a tool to automate the transcription and summarisation of parliamentary committee meetings using four different open-source models and proprietary services, including Cohere’s Command R+, an ISED spokesperson told BetaKit.
Cohere has spent about $1 million lobbying politicians in Canada, the United States, Europe, and the United Kingdom since 2023, the Investigative Journalism Foundation reported in June.
The agreement comes amid a push within the federal government to leverage AI technology to boost productivity. In a mandate letter to cabinet ministers, Prime Minister Mark Carney called for public servants to prioritize “deploying AI at scale” and “focusing on results over spending.”
With files from Alex Riehl. Feature image courtesy Evan Solomon via X.