Borderless AI’s Make It Click podcast is turning its attention to one of Canada’s most closely watched artificial intelligence companies.
In Episode 5, host Willson Cross sits down with Nick Frosst, co-founder of Cohere, for an hour long conversation about enterprise AI, data privacy, AI sovereignty, and why the Toronto-based company has focused its efforts on business customers rather than the consumer AI race.
Frosst is a Canadian AI researcher, entrepreneur, and musician. Before co-founding Cohere, he worked on neural networks and machine learning at Google Brain. Today, Cohere is building large language models for enterprise use, with a focus on secure and private deployments for businesses. Frosst is also a founding member of Good Kid, an indie rock band with millions of monthly listeners.
The episode explores why Cohere has made a deliberate bet on B2B AI. As companies experiment with large language models, many are also asking harder questions about data security, deployment models, regulatory requirements, and whether sensitive information can be safely used with AI systems. Those concerns are especially relevant in regulated industries, where privacy, control, and trust are not optional.
For Canada’s tech talent ecosystem, the conversation offers a useful look at how enterprise AI companies are being built differently from consumer-focused AI products. Rather than chasing mass-market adoption, Cohere’s approach is centred on helping organizations deploy AI in ways that fit their existing security, compliance, and operational requirements.
The discussion also touches on on-premise deployments, a model that can help customers protect data and maintain greater control over how AI is used inside their organizations. For employers and talent leaders, that raises important questions about the future of work: how teams will adopt AI tools, what kinds of technical and operational skills companies will need, and how organizations can move quickly without compromising trust.
Frosst also shares his perspective on broader AI debates, including the hype around artificial general intelligence and the growing importance of AI sovereignty in a shifting geopolitical landscape. His view offers a grounded counterpoint to some of the more speculative narratives surrounding AI, focusing instead on practical business use cases, deployment realities, and the economics of the market.
The episode also gives listeners a more personal view of Frosst’s path. Alongside his work in AI, he remains active as a musician with Good Kid, giving the conversation a distinctive angle on creativity, technical ambition, and building at a high level across more than one field.
As with other episodes of Make It Click, the conversation is especially relevant for founders, operators, HR leaders, and technology teams trying to understand where AI is going and what it means for work. Frosst’s perspective shows that the next phase of AI adoption may be defined less by novelty and more by trust, deployment discipline, and solving real problems for organizations.
Watch the full episode of Make It Click below.
Borderless AI is a sponsor of Techtalent.ca. Through its Make It Click series, the company is spotlighting conversations with technology leaders about company building, talent, AI, and the future of work.