Gomez, a former computer science student at the University of Toronto, left his position at Google in 2021 to co-found Cohere. Cohere, an AI startup with backing from Nvidia and a reported valuation of $5 billion, focuses on creating generative AI models for businesses, distinguishing itself from consumer-oriented products like OpenAI's ChatGPT. In a recent interview with CNBC, Gomez expressed his astonishment at the current technological capabilities of AI models. He stated, "There's no one in the field who was around back then working who could have foreseen where we are in terms of technological capability. The models are doing things that I personally believed I might only witness towards the end of my career, perhaps in about 40 years. " During his internship at Google Brain in 2017, Gomez helped co-author the groundbreaking paper "Attention Is All You Need", which introduced the transformer and acted as a catalyst for the emergence of generative AI. Gomez highlighted the productivity gains demonstrated by research from MIT and Harvard, stating, "You can quantitatively measure it. When you place a knowledge worker alongside one of these models and train them to utilize it effectively, you witness productivity boosts of around 40%. " In June 2023, Cohere, with investors including Salesforce and Oracle, secured $270 million in funding at a valuation of $2. 2 billion.

Cohere representatives have also participated in AI forums at the White House. Gomez noted that, until recently, their operations had been handled by a small team of about five individuals. However, Cohere has expanded to approximately 400 employees and is rapidly growing its sales team. When asked about specific use cases where generative AI provides tangible benefits to a company's profitability, Gomez referenced a model developed by Cohere for an insurance company. This technology enables the insurer to generate quicker quotes, gaining a competitive advantage when bidding on contracts from mining or pipeline firms. Describing it as a race, Gomez explained, "The first insurance provider to present a reasonable bid wins that contract. We augmented their actuaries, who conduct research on projects, assess risks, and determine quotes. " By accelerating the actuaries' work, Gomez revealed that the business was able to secure more contracts. "I never anticipated that an insurance company for natural resource projects would adopt large language models, " Gomez reflected. "But they are. " For the full conversation between CNBC's Steve Kovach and Aidan Gomez, please watch the attached video.