Tech industry hopeful about AI strategy but longing for more details

TORONTO – Canada’s tech industry is optimistic about the artificial intelligence strategy Prime Minister Mark Carney launched Thursday morning but say its success will all come down to how he executes the plan.

The 50-page strategy promises funding, training and new support programs to boost AI adoption. It also pledges to create 90,000 jobs connected to the technology and spur $200 billion in GDP gains.

However, the plan doesn’t break down how all the initiatives will work nor how quickly they will come, making some in the industry cautious about how much support to throw behind the plan.

“We need to see action,” said Laurent Carbonneau, vice-president of policy and advocacy at the Council of Canadian Innovators, a network of more than 170 high-growth businesses focused on tech.

“It took them a while to get to this point, which was disappointing and now we’re waiting again for more detail on a lot of these really important pieces.”

Carney has had Evan Solomon working on the strategy since he was handed the new AI portfolio last spring. 

The assignment came well after AI had solidified itself as the globe’s buzziest technology with companies rushing to adopt it and regulators scrambling to develop policies that would protect people from the many harms it could bring.

How the country approaches AI became even more important when the U.S. tariff war intensified and a buy Canadian sentiment emerged, causing tech companies and consumers to think more closely about sovereignty.

The strategy is candid about the situation Canada finds itself in. It points out there’s a lack of trust in AI systems, a need for stronger laws and protections online and the potential for workers and communities to be deeply impacted by the technology.

It aims to change the picture by modernizing privacy and online safety laws, developing national AI literacy and a job bank for skills training, building a public supercomputer and investing in commercialization.

Louis Têtu, CEO at software firm Coveo, said the plan was “beyond his expectations” because it touched on so many parts of the AI pipeline and was so honest about the outlook.

“They didn’t hide the fact that we’re behind and they didn’t hide the core issues,” he said.

But he also worries they didn’t address “the biggest issue in this country” — the amount of talent, companies and Canadian innovation leaving the country.

“Canada’s been in love and drinking its own Kool-Aid in science and research, and we should be proud of that, but the problem is we’ve never cared about industrialization and commercialization,” he said.

“Over the past 30 years in technology, we’ve invited foreign companies to come and literally reap the benefits of our inventions, our innovation, without even noticing.”

As soon as startups succeed, he said international investors come and pick them up one after the other, causing talent to cross the border as well. 

Despite being dedicated to Canada, he said “Americans knock on our door every week.”

“The system cannot only rely on people who are a little more nationalist,” he said. “We have to have a capital market structure and technology that is competitive.”

The $500 million the strategy pledges to help close the scale-up capital gap is not enough. Têtu wants to see even more incentives that get private capital to take on a little extra risk and get competitive with Americans so domestic darlings can get funded. 

He said he’s taking a wait-and-see approach to the new strategy because the ambition is at least good, but he doesn’t know how exactly the government will make it all happen.

Carbonneau shared some of those reservations.

“Strategies should have objectives and they should have a pretty clear link between the tactics and activities and what you’re trying to achieve,” he said. “I’m a little worried … this one is perhaps trying to do too many things at once.”

But it was the strategy’s broad nature that Valérie Pisano, president and chief executive of Montreal-based AI research institute Mila, saw as a strength.

She liked that it tackles both AI’s opportunities and risks and that it veered into territory that could have been overlooked like the tremendous energy AI will require and the sustainability challenges it could cause. 

She thought the strategy will be a success if it manages to stay on top of the rapid shifts in AI. 

“Every three to five weeks or so it seems there’s something relatively significant that happens in the world of AI, so we really have to be building out this strategy in a way that’s going to be dynamic and that’s going to be able to adapt and adjust,” she said.

“But we do need to move forward, we need to do it now and we need to do it fast.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 4, 2026.