The slow adoption rate is seen as a potential threat to Canada's productivity, especially in comparison to the U.S. and other Nordic nations. The co-founders suggest that large language models, a key component of AI, could significantly improve Canada's productivity by augmenting about 20% of knowledge-based jobs. They urge business leaders to expedite the adoption of AI to prevent falling further behind in the global market.
Key takeaways:
- Canadian companies are excited about AI but the process of turning that enthusiasm into products and tools is slow and lengthy, according to Nick Frosst, co-founder of Toronto-based enterprise AI business Cohere, and Nicole Janssen, the co-founder of Edmonton-based AI firm AltaML.
- It often takes around 36 months from the time a company decides to use AI to the time they start implementing it, which can lead to frustration and abandonment of the technology.
- Despite Canada's reputation as a hotbed of AI innovation, the country is lagging behind in adoption compared to other nations, which could be contributing to declines in real GDP per capita.
- Large language models, the underpinning of AI, could potentially augment about 20% of knowledge-based jobs and significantly improve Canada's productivity, but the country needs to speed up its adoption of AI to take advantage of this opportunity.