In 2017, while interning at Google Brain, Aidan Gomez co-authored the groundbreaking “Attention Is All You Need” paper, which introduced the transformer model and sparked the generative AI revolution.
Reflecting on the rapid technological advancements, Gomez told CNBC, “No one in the field back then could have anticipated our current capabilities. The models are achieving things I thought I might see at the end of my career, maybe in 40 years.”
During his internship, Gomez was a computer science student at the University of Toronto. In 2021, he left Google to co-found Cohere, an AI startup backed by Nvidia and reportedly valued at $5 billion.
Gomez highlighted significant productivity gains demonstrated in research from MIT and Harvard, noting, “You can quantitatively measure it. Knowledge workers trained to use these models can see productivity increases of around 40%.”
In June 2023, Cohere raised $270 million at a $2.2 billion valuation, with investors including Salesforce and Oracle. Cohere executives have even attended AI forums at the White House. Despite rapid growth—now at around 400 employees—Cohere’s achievements have largely been driven by a small team.
Gomez provided an example of generative AI benefiting a business’s bottom line: a model Cohere developed for an insurer to expedite quote submissions for mining or pipeline project proposals. “It’s a race,” he explained. “The first insurer to submit a reasonable bid wins the contract. By augmenting their actuaries, we helped them win more contracts.”
Expressing his surprise, Gomez added, “I never thought a natural resource project insurer would adopt large language models, but they have.”
Watch the full conversation between CNBC’s Steve Kovach and Aidan Gomez in the video.
