Aidan Gomez contributes to the invention of Transformer at Google and now brings AI to the commercial field at Cohere

Coin World Reports:
Aidan Gomez interned at Google Brain in 2017, where he helped co-author the paper “Attention Is All You Need,” which conceptualized the transformer and ultimately ushered in the boom of generative artificial intelligence. In a recent interview with CNBC, Gomez said, “No one working in this field at the time could foresee the advancements in our technological capabilities.” Gomez, who was a computer science student at the University of Toronto during his internship, left Google in 2021 to co-found Cohere, an AI startup backed by NVIDIA, which reportedly raised funds at a valuation of $5 billion. Cohere creates generative AI models for enterprise use, contrasting with consumer-focused products like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Gomez stated, “Research from MIT and Harvard demonstrates an increase in productivity.” “You can measure it quantitatively. You have a knowledge worker sitting next to one of these models. You train them how to use it, how to make it useful for them. They have to learn how to use the technology, but once they do, you see productivity increase by about 40%.” In June 2023, Cohere raised $270 million from investors including Salesforce and Oracle, valuing the company at $2.2 billion. Cohere executives even participated in the White House’s AI Summit. Gomez said, “Up until recently, it’s been about five people doing everything.” Cohere now has around 400 employees, with its sales team rapidly expanding. When asked about specific use cases where generative AI can benefit a company’s profits, Gomez cited the model Cohere built to help an insurance company. The technology enables the company to submit quotes faster when receiving bid requests from mining or pipeline companies, beating competitors. Gomez referred to it as a race. He said, “The first insurance company to submit a reasonable quote wins the contract.” “We augment their actuaries, the people who research the project, assess the risks, and make the quotes.” Gomez stated that by speeding up the actuaries, the company is able to win more contracts. He said, “I never thought a natural resources project insurance company would adopt large language models.” “But they are.” Watch the video to hear the full conversation between CNBC’s Steve Kovach and Aidan Gomez.