TORONTO — Cohere is ramping up its presence and activity in Ottawa, as the firm tries to capitalize on an agreement to help the federal public service adopt artificial intelligence.

Last month, the Liberal government announced a non-binding memorandum of understanding with the Toronto-based AI firm to test its products and explore how departments and agencies might use its technology in their operations.

Cohere is staffing up in Ottawa to support that work. The firm is trying to hire software engineers focused on public-sector clients to build new AI agents and features for North, its workplace AI system. It’s also recruiting solutions architects in the city, technical staff who help potential customers test Cohere’s products and teach their employees how to use the technology. For those roles, Cohere is looking for candidates with several years of experience selling to the public sector and, ideally, with security clearance.

The company has also been demonstrating its products to federal departments and agencies, according to documents obtained by The Logic via access to information requests. In May, the in-house AI accelerator at Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) hosted a “full-day workshop” at which Cohere showed off North, according to an internal memo. 

The department’s IT unit and other officials are testing the product with a view to a pilot deployment, according to a memo prepared for senior officials. ISED is also trying out a competing generative AI platform developed in-house. The department has already used Cohere’s Command R+ large language model (LLM) to power part of an application called ParlBrief, which transcribes, summarizes and analyzes Parliamentary committee meetings.

As The Logic first reported in June, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) also had a contract with Cohere. The agency’s cyber and foreign signals units are using AI tools to “manage an ever-increasing volume and complexity of data, surface intelligence insights and improve decision making,” according to a memo prepared for Defence Minister David McGuinty in May. CSE is using in-house tools as well as working with Cohere, the document states, although details of the collaboration are redacted in the version of the memo the CSE released to The Logic in response to an access to information request. 

Cohere did not respond to a request for comment on its work with the federal government. The public sector is “not a huge piece of our business at present,” Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez told The Logic in July. But the firm hopes to do more work with provincial and federal governments in Canada on efforts to boost national security and productivity, he said.

Cohere has ramped up its lobbying efforts in Ottawa as Prime Minister Mark Carney promises to deploy “AI at scale” to make government operations more productive. 

The firm’s representatives have communicated with federal officials on 45 occasions this year, according to the lobbyist registry. Some 14 of those related to procurement, including two contacts in July on updating government buying policies with the deputy minister of Public Services and Procurement Canada and the president of Shared Services Canada, the federal IT department. 

Following the cabinet retreat in Toronto this month, Cohere representatives communicated with Tim Krupa, Carney’s director of policy, as well as the chiefs of staff to AI Minister Evan Solomon, Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson and Treasury Board President Shafqat Ali.

The firm has also recently lobbied the branch of ISED that drafts legislation, including the proposed Artificial Intelligence and Data Act, which failed to pass in the last Parliament. Solomon has said the Liberal government will not reintroduce the law wholesale, but is developing an updated regulatory framework for AI. Cohere has lobbied Conservative staffers, too.

Cohere’s government affairs and public policy team is led by Melika Carrol, a Washington, D.C.-based executive. In addition to the sales and engineering jobs, Cohere is also hiring its first lobbyist based in Ottawa who will help “support policy advocacy and procurement strategy provincially and nationally,” according to the job listing.

Solomon has said the Liberal government plans to use its buying power to help Canadian companies developing critical technologies to scale and sell abroad. “We should be unapologetic about championing our champions,” he told The Logic in June, citing Cohere as one such firm.