While artificial intelligence (AI) is often associated with job losses, the Canadian government under Mark Carney estimates it could create up to 250,000 jobs within five years.
“We have a lot to gain by developing this here,” says Joëlle Pineau, head of AI at Cohere, in an interview with Patrice Roy.
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Lots and lots of opinions about AI, which is taking more and more space in our lives and in the lives of businesses. Joelle Pineau, Chief AI Officer at Cohere. Good evening.
I have to say I was quite surprised. AI usage. The plan tabled by Mark Carney today targets only 60% of businesses using it by 2034. So there wouldn't be that many using it in Canada.
I have to say that I find the numbers very surprising. All Canadians, as soon as we enter the portal of a digital world, we go onto the internet, we use tools, there is AI interference, whether it's to protect our data or recommend content. Companies often have their... but it's more predictive AI than generative AI.
It's an AI that predicts the content that interests us. We make financial transactions and it will predict whether there is fraud or not. It's an AI that makes targeted predictions. Maybe the shift we're anticipating now is towards generative AI. It generates images, code, ephemeral applications.
What was announced today, in your view, that will change the game in Canada? We're announcing $2.3 billion coming with these announcements. What will that change? What horizon does it open up?
There are a lot of things being put in place in this strategy. There are quite a few components. Among other things, there's the whole education component, access to this technology, providing access to AI platforms for Quebec students, providing programs that prepare people for the job market with the new technologies, all of that training. It's quite big.
There's a whole component that is more at the level of investments to allow AI companies to set up here in Canada. For years we told our startups to set up. We'll have the opportunity to support them at a pivotal moment in their growth.
Because it's striking how there are great minds in Canada, in Quebec, in Montreal especially — you are one, Bengio is another — but that the application of AI was being done elsewhere. There were research chairs and discoveries were made, concepts developed elsewhere. Others were making money. Why?
It was being commercialized elsewhere. That's it. Why? I'll give you an example. We go to California, we meet professors at Stanford, each professor has 10 startups. In Montreal, one professor out of 10 has a startup. There's a culture around risk-taking that is completely different. I think you need an appetite to take the plunge and to see what we're capable of building. We have a lot to gain by developing this here.
Are we not condemned to have the Chinese and the Americans lead the dance in AI and for us to follow behind? Is the world not being shaped, the AI world, by these two giants?
10 more exchanges in this transcript
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Pineau, J. (2026, June 4). Canada’s Artificial Intelligence Strategy: An Interview with the Head of AI at Cohere [Interview transcript]. Radio-Canada Info. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3181328/
MLA
Joelle Pineau. "Canada’s Artificial Intelligence Strategy: An Interview with the Head of AI at Cohere." Radio-Canada Info, 4 Jun. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3181328/.
BibTeX
@misc{pineau2026_3181328,
author = {Joelle Pineau},
title = {Canada’s Artificial Intelligence Strategy: An Interview with the Head of AI at Cohere},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, Radio-Canada Info. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {jun},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3181328/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
