Happy Hump Day {{first_name | Toaster}} 🐪 ,

Canada announced its new AI strategy, AI for All, which aims to make the country a global AI leader through investments in infrastructure, talent, business adoption, and jobs. The TL;DR is that the government is targeting 250,000 AI-related jobs, $200 billion in economic growth, and increasing business AI adoption from 12% today to 60% by 2034.

The new strategy focuses on turning that strength into economic growth through:

With Canada planning to double down on AI, does this mean we are behind? The short answer is maybe not as much as it feels.

We’re not starting from zero - Canada already has world-class AI research institutions like Amii, Mila, and Vector. Canada also has globally recognized academics and a steady stream of talent that has quietly been shaping the AI breakthroughs big tech companies love to claim.

When we say “we’re behind,” we mean: we don’t have as many AI giants headquartered here. Fair, but that’s a business scaling problem, not an intelligence deficit.

A better question might be: are we actually ready to use what we already have? Then the challenge becomes less about generating new breakthroughs and instead helping businesses, governments, and workers put those breakthroughs into practice. The value of AI comes from knowing how, when, and where to use it.

The next phase emphasizes adoption over inventing new models. The countries (and companies) that win won’t just be the ones building the smartest systems, but the ones that actually integrate AI into work, policy, healthcare, and daily decision-making fastest.

It's also worth noting that not everyone may need AI. For many workers, AI remains something they hear about in online discourse more than something they actively use. Plenty of people don't need it for their jobs, or aren't even sure where it fits in their lives. Canada's plan assumes broader adoption will drive growth, but the real opportunity may lie in knowing when AI adds value, not using it for everything.

Whether Canada's AI plan succeeds won't depend on how many headlines it generates, but on how effectively we bridge the gap between innovation and implementation. We may not be as far behind as we think; we just need to get better at turning our strengths into action.

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