Businesses can secure real value as AI promises a watershed moment
Realistic and internationally standardized approaches to the risks of AI deployment will be key to reaping the technology’s massive potential, says Cohere’s President and COO, Martin Kon.
Cohere specializes in large language models. The company creates enterprise-grade AI technology designed to deliver value for businesses.
Cohere’s CEO, Aidan Gomez, was one of the inventors of the Transformer – the T in ChatGPT – while a machine learning researcher at Google Brain.
Excited by the technology’s potential, but frustrated at the lack of real-world applications beyond Google itself, Gomez co-founded Cohere with Nick Frosst [sic] and Ivan Zhang.
AI promises exponential change
Cohere’s President and Chief Operating Officer, Martin Kon, is in no doubt about the transformational power of artificial intelligence. He compares the current era to the advent of the internet.
“To my mind, this is the most disruptive, most transformational time that we’ve seen in at least 30 years,” he says. “It’s going to change everything about how enterprises operate, how customers deal with their service providers, how we as knowledge workers go about our day-to-day tasks.
“I think we’ll see millions of jobs created, we’ll see trillions of dollars of economic value created,” he predicts.
“To my mind, this is the most disruptive, most transformational time that we’ve seen in at least 30 years.”
Martin Kon, President and Chief Operating Officer, Cohere
Tackle the real-world risks
Kon acknowledges the risks of AI, specifically around bias and toxicity in LLMs, and the necessity for human input in some processes. Policy guardrails are important to ensure these issues are addressed, he says.
He has less time for predictions about AI as a long-term threat to humanity’s survival. “Some of this talk of existential risk is a bit hyperbolic, and I think a distraction from the real risks about deploying in the real world,” he declares.
“Some of this talk of existential risk is a bit hyperbolic, and I think a distraction from the real risks about deploying in the real world.”
Martin Kon, President and Chief Operating Officer, Cohere
Regulation needs to be standardized
Kon is encouraged by collaboration on these issues among western nations, with the topic likely to head the agenda for Canada’s G7 presidency in 2025.
As a business with Canadian roots, and offices and investors worldwide, the company sees it as critical that regulation does not put businesses at a disadvantage against international competitors: “The most important thing is to make sure that anything that’s done here in Canada is harmonized with what’s done elsewhere.”
Independence and security are key
Cohere’s model is based on offering the highest levels of data security and privacy to companies, financial institutions, and government bodies. Unlike the big players, its AI technology is not exclusive to a specific cloud provider.
“We ship our models to an enterprise’s data – we don’t ask them to ship their data to our models,” Kon explains. “That means being cloud-agnostic.”
The company is counting on its independence being valuable to customers. “We do not have a cash-burning consumer chatbot,” Kon adds. “We focus only on how AI can help enterprises – with their employees, with their customers – and we’ve been focused on that since day one.”