Coin World reports:
Aidan Gomez interned at Google Brain in 2017, where he co-authored the paper “Attention Is All You Need,” conceptualizing the transformer and ultimately sparking the boom in generative artificial intelligence. Gomez told CNBC in a recent interview, “At that time, no one working in the field could foresee our development in terms of technical capabilities.” As a computer science student at the University of Toronto during his internship, Gomez left Google in 2021 to co-found Cohere, an AI startup supported by Nvidia, which reportedly raised funds at a valuation of $5 billion. Cohere produces generative AI models for corporate use, in stark contrast to consumer-oriented products like OpenAI’s ChatGPT
Gomez stated, “Research from MIT and Harvard shows an increase in productivity.” “You can measure it quantitatively. You have a knowledge worker sit next to one of the models. You train them how to use it, how to make it useful for them. They have to learn how to use this technology, but once they do, you see about a 40% increase in productivity.” In June 2023, Cohere raised $270 million from investors including Salesforce and Oracle, valued at $2.2 billion. Cohere executives even participated in the White House AI forum. Gomez said that until recently, “everything had been done by about five people.” Cohere now has about 400 employees, with its sales team rapidly growing. When asked about specific use cases where generative AI could benefit a company’s profits, Gomez cited a model Cohere built to assist insurance companies. The technology allows the company to submit quotes faster when receiving tender requests from mining or pipeline companies, beating competitors. Gomez called it a race. He said, “The first insurance company to make them a reasonable offer wins the contract.” “We’ve increased their actuaries, the people who research the projects, assess the risks, and make the bids.” Gomez indicated that by speeding up the actuaries, the company could win more contracts. He said, “I never thought an insurance company for natural resource projects would adopt a large language model.” “But they have.” Watch the video to hear the full conversation between CNBC’s Steve Kovach and Aidan Gomez