The provincial government has signed a non-binding agreement to test the Toronto-headquartered firm’s technology for administrative applications, to improve efficiency and service delivery. Quebec isn’t making any specific contract commitments under the deal. (The Logic)

Talking point: The province is the first to signal it could use Cohere’s technology in its public service. The firm has been building out its Quebec presence. It recently opened a Montreal office; hired one of the city’s most prominent researchers in Joelle Pineau; worked with AI institute Mila to improve its models’ French; and bought Montreal-based startup Reliant AI. Cohere signed a similar exploratory agreement with the federal government last August. Ottawa has since made some initial purchases. In March, Cohere received two federal contracts worth a combined $2.3 million for up to 3,400 licenses for its North system, which lets users create and run AI agents to do tasks for them. Officials at the innovation and IT departments and central Privy Council Office will test the software. Shared Services Canada spokesperson Jeremy César said it chose North because it is “the only fully Canadian-developed agentic AI solution” that meets Ottawa’s “operational and sovereignty requirements.”