Partnering to lead AI transformation across organizations

The University of Waterloo is partnering with Cohere, a Canadian-founded artificial intelligence (AI) company and global leader in sovereign AI, to develop new ways for students to learn how to lead AI transformation inside organizations.

Through the partnership, Cohere will support Waterloo’s Future of Work Institute in developing a new AI Transformation and Change Management certificate. The program will equip students with the practical skills needed to help workplaces adopt AI securely, responsibly and in ways that address real operational challenges.

Cohere, which builds trusted AI solutions for highly regulated industries including finance, health care, manufacturing, and the public sector, is investing in Waterloo’s Future of Work Institute to help shape a new approach to preparing students for transformation roles.

“Canada has one of the strongest AI talent pipelines in the world, and the University of Waterloo has played a defining role in building it,” says Joelle Pineau, Chief AI Officer at Cohere. “By giving students hands-on experience helping organizations identify and implement practical AI opportunities, we’re preparing the next generation to lead AI transformation while strengthening Canada’s position as a leader in secure, sovereign AI.”

The partnership will support the development and launch of the new certificate in fall 2026. A core component of the program will be structured co-op opportunities that give students experience working directly with organizations, while allowing the University and its partners to continually improve the approach based on what they learn.

The certificate responds to the growing need for people who can guide AI transformation in Canadian workplaces. The non-credit program will consist of badges earned through hands-on learning, workplace experience and collaborative problem-solving.

“AI adoption is not the point, but solving problems is,” says Dr. Edith Law, Executive Director of the Future of Work Institute and Associate Professor of Computer Science. “Through this certificate program we will train students to think critically about bottlenecks, processes and challenges in organizations, and tackle these problems by designing socio-technical solutions with organizations. We envision that these solutions will likely involve both tech and non-tech innovations and leverage the best of AI in the mix.”

The tech-inclusive certificate will offer modules focused on human-centred design, ethics, change management and business strategies while exposing students to a wide variety of technologies from different companies. The certificate drives interdisciplinary, system-level thinking and innovation both at the university and in Canadian workplaces. It will teach students AI competency and connect participants with organizations to do AI use case discovery, prioritization and implementation work.

The first cohort is scheduled to start in January 2027, with 20 co-op positions dedicated to structured and guided AI transformation work with private, public sector and non-profit organizations for all students in any faculty.

The development of the certificate has been led by the Future of Work Institute, in collaboration with the Centre for Work-Integrated Learning and the GreenHouse Social Impact Incubator.

“We’re excited to partner with Cohere,” Law says. “The initiative serves as a living lab, where our students do AI transformation work, while finding new ways to evolve the process so that it is more impactful, responsible and meaningful.”