Key Points

1. On September 26, 2025, the Government of Canada announced the launch of an AI Strategy Task Force and a “30-day national sprint” that will help shape Canada’s approach to AI

   
   

2. The government will be seeking advice on a broad range of AI-related themes, including: research and talent; AI adoption across industry and governments; commercialization of AI; scaling Canadian AI champions and attracting investments; building safe AI systems and strengthening public trust in AI; education and skills; building enabling infrastructure; and security of the Canadian infrastructure and capacity

   
   

3. The AI Task Force is made of technical experts in areas such as research and talent, AI adoption, commercialization, scaling and attracting investment, education and skills, infrastructure, and security

On September 26, 2025, the Government of Canada, via the Honourable Evan Solomon, Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation, announced the launch of an AI Strategy Task Force (Task Force) and a “30-day national sprint” (Consultation) that will help shape Canada’s approach to AI. The ultimate goal of the Task Force and Consultation is to set out a renewed AI strategy to position Canada.

What Will the Task Force Do?

The government will be seeking advice on a broad range of AI-related themes, including:

• research and talent

  
  

• AI adoption across industry and governments

  
  

• commercialization of AI

  
  

• scaling Canadian AI champions and attracting investments

  
  

• building safe AI systems and strengthening public trust in AI

  
  

• education and skills

  
  

• building enabling infrastructure

  
  

• security of the Canadian infrastructure and capacity

• 
  

The Task Force, a group of experts, will consult their networks to provide actionable insights and recommendations.

What are the Consultations About?

Canadians are invited to share their perspectives to help define the next chapter of Canada’s AI. The Consultation begins October 1, 2025 and ends on October 31, 2025.

Subsequently, ideally in November, the AI Strategy Task Force will share the ideas that they gather.

Who is on the AI Task Force?

The AI Strategy Task Force comprises several leaders of the AI ecosystem and will be consulting their networks on specific themes, as listed below:

Research and Talent

Gail Murphy, Professor of Computer Science and Vice-President – Research & Innovation, University of British Columbia and Vice-Chair at the Digital Research Alliance of Canada 

Diane Gutiw, Vice-President – Global AI Research Lead, CGI Canada and Co-Chair of the Advisory Council on AI

Michael Bowling, Professor of Computer Science and Principal Investigator – Reinforcement Learning & Artificial Intelligence Lab, University of Alberta and Research Fellow, Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute and Canada CIFAR AI Chair

Arvind Gupta, Professor of Computer Science, University of Toronto

Adoption across industry and governments

Olivier Blais, Co-Founder and Vice-President of AI, Moov.AI and Co-Chair of the Advisory Council on AI

Cari Covent, Strategic Data and AI Advisor, Technology Executive

Dan Debow, Chair of the Board, Build Canada

Commercialization of AI

Louis Têtu, Executive Chairman, Coveo

Michael Serbinis, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, League and Board Chair of the Perimeter Institute

Adam Keating, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, CoLab

Scaling our champions and attracting investment

Patrick Pichette, General Partner, Inovia Capital

Ajay Agrawal, Professor of Strategic Management, University of Toronto and Founder, Next Canada and Founder, Creative Destruction Lab 

Sonia Sennik, Chief Executive Officer, Creative Destruction Lab

Ben Bergen, President, Council of Canadian Innovators 

Building safe AI systems and public trust in AI

Mary Wells, Dean of Engineering, University of Waterloo

Joelle Pineau, Chief AI Officer, Cohere

Taylor Owen, Founding Director, Center for Media, Technology and Democracy

Education and Skills

Natiea Vinson, Chief Executive Officer, First Nations Technology Council

Alex Laplante, Vice-President – Cash Management Technology Canada, Royal Bank of Canada and Board Member at Mitacs

David Naylor, Professor of Medicine and President Emeritus

Sarah Ryan, Senior Research Officer, Canadian Union of Public Employees

Infrastructure

Garth Gibson, Chief Technology and AI Officer, VDURA

Ian Rae, President and Chief Executive Officer, Aptum

Marc Etienne Ouimette, Chair of the Board, Digital Moment and Member, OECD One AI Group of Experts, Affiliate researcher, sovereign AI, Cambridge University Bennett School of Public Policy

Security

Shelly Bruce, Distinguished Fellow, Centre for International Governance Innovation

James Neufeld, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, samdesk

Sam Ramadori, Co-President and Executive Director, LawZero

What Can We Take from this Development?

First and foremost, if you are interested in providing comments, do it right away (you may need to sprint to participate in the national sprint) because the deadline is fast approaching.

Second, the AI Minister was quick to point out that Canada was the first country in the world to launch a funded national AI strategy—the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy (PCAIS)—to drive adoption of AI across Canada’s economy and society. In fact, he went so far as to deny that Canada is behind other countries in AI and needs to catch up. He seemed to be of the view that Canada is and remains to be a leader in AI—even though we have watched other countries surpass Canada in AI (and privacy) regulation. This response will likely be disappointing for many Canadians, since it is important to first acknowledge that there is a problem before it is possible to fix it.

Third, the announcement also referred to the recent investment of $2 billion for the Canadian Sovereign AI Compute Strategy in 2024—despite the fact that other governments and companies in other countries have poured in a much larger amount and have gotten so much further ahead than Canada. For example, Google invested $33 billion in 2024; it plans on investing $75 billion in 2025.

Fourth, the AI Task Force mentioned the list of experts, most of whom are involved in the technical aspects of AI. While it is important to have a task force made of technical experts in areas such as research and talent, AI adoption, commercialization, scaling and attracting investment, education and skills, infrastructure, and security, it is also important to include philosophers and ethicists, legal minds, and sociologists, as they would myriad perspectives and create a more holistic understanding of how AI needs to be implemented into society. 

Fifth, the AI Minister has said that the members of the AI Task Force will consult their networks to provide actionable insights and recommendations. Can I ask, What does this mean? It appears that experts who have something to offer the government can only participate in this phase if they fall into certain networks. This is disappointing given that many Canadians who are not part of these select networks could provide valuable insights into how we can create a renewed AI strategy in Canada.