New collaboration prioritizes Quebec's unique linguistic landscape to support trusted AI adoption across multilingual enterprise and public sector environments.
MONTRÉAL, May 27, 2026 /CNW/ - Cohere and Mila today announced plans to enter into a new academic research collaboration focused on advancing the science of multilingual and multicultural AI evaluation, with an initial emphasis on French-language cultural context in Quebec.
The collaboration will build on Cohere's growing momentum in Quebec and its continued investment in Canada's AI ecosystem. By working with Mila, one of the world's leading AI research institutes, Cohere will support research into how frontier AI models can move beyond standardized language outputs and better reflect the cultural, social, and institutional context that shapes Quebec French is used in the real world.
As AI adoption accelerates across enterprises and governments, organizations increasingly need systems that are accurate, secure, and culturally relevant to the specific regions they serve. Cohere and Mila's collaboration is designed to help advance the evaluation methods needed for this next phase of adoption, giving AI builders and adopters stronger tools to assess performance in high-context, multilingual environments.
The collaboration will explore research directions at the intersection of language, culture, and model evaluation. Drawing on Quebec's deep AI research community and multilingual environment, the work may include new approaches to understanding how AI systems perform across different linguistic and cultural contexts, with the goal of supporting more useful and trusted AI in real-world settings.
"We are proud to see two of Canada's leading AI organizations joining forces to build tools that are truly relevant and adapted to Quebec's rich language and culture," said Valérie Pisano, President and CEO at Mila. "This partnership is not only a win for French language representation in AI, but also a unique opportunity for Mila's researchers to ensure that frontier models are evaluated through the lens of Quebec's specific social and institutional realities. By working with Cohere, we are helping to ensure that AI innovation serves the distinct needs of our community."
"AI is most valuable when it reflects the people, languages, and institutions it is built to serve," said Joëlle Pineau, Chief AI Officer, Cohere. "Quebec's French-language ecosystem brings a depth of nuance that is essential to getting enterprise AI right, and Mila is an ideal partner to help advance that work. Together, we aim to strengthen how AI systems are evaluated, improved, and deployed so organizations in Quebec, across Canada, and around the world can use them with greater confidence, relevance, and trust."
The collaboration will bring together Mila researchers and Cohere's technical teams as the work progresses, with the goal of developing practical insights that help organizations adopt AI more confidently in multilingual environments worldwide.
About Mila – Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute
Founded by Professor Yoshua Bengio, Mila – Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute is the world's largest academic AI research center specialized in deep learning, home to a community over 1500 strong. Based in Montreal, Mila was created out of a unique partnership between Université de Montréal and McGill University, dedicated to advancing scientific breakthroughs that drive innovation and ensure AI benefits everyone. A non-profit organization, Mila is strongly supported by the Government of Canada through the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy and by the Government of Quebec. Internationally recognized for its influential research, global innovation partnerships, and leadership in multilateral efforts on responsible AI, Mila continues to shape the future of AI worldwide. For more information, visit mila.quebec.
About Cohere
Cohere, founded 2019, is a security-first enterprise AI leader building foundation models and end-to-end products to solve real-world business problems. We partner with organizations to deliver seamless integration, customization and user-friendly solutions. Our all-in-one platform provides maximum security, privacy and deployment flexibility across clouds, private environments and on-premises. Headquartered in Toronto and San Francisco, Cohere operates additional offices in London, New York, Montreal, Paris, and Seoul, serving customers worldwide. The company has raised ~$1.6BUSD from strategic tech investors (Nvidia, AMD Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, Oracle, Cisco), institutional investors (Radical Ventures, Inovia Capital, PSP Investments, HOOPP, BDC, Nexxus), and AI pioneers including Geoffrey Hinton, Fei-Fei Li, Pieter Abbeel and Raquel Urtasun. For more information, visit cohere.com.
SOURCE Mila & Cohere
Media contacts: For Mila: [email protected]; For Cohere: [email protected]
Share this article