A peek at some Canadian companies driving innovation with AI

Artificial intelligence (AI), especially generative AI, exploded in popularity only a few months ago, but now it’s on the lips of every business, big or small.

Here are a few Canadian AI companies – and a couple from elsewhere – you’ve probably never heard of, but should know about.

Infinitii ai

This Vancouver-based company originally provided environmental monitoring to many of the largest water infrastructure utilities in the U.S. and Canada. But it now has evolved to leverage AI-driven predictive analytics software for smart city water and smart industry infrastructure applications that rely on time-series data.

Its customers include the smart cities and municipalities of Toronto, Seattle, Miami-Dade County, Boston, Dallas, Region of Peel, Vancouver and Los Angeles County, among others.

The company recently landed a five-year, $1.472 million contract with a large Canadian municipality.

Axonify

Waterloo-based frontline employee enablement platform Axonify has launched Max, a generative AI tool that answers on-the-job questions to better enable frontline workers in every industry to work quickly, efficiently and accurately.

Chief executive officer (CEO) Carol Leaman said that AI has been at the core of Axonify’s platform for over a decade, but Max is the next stage in the company’s commitment to empower frontline workers.

The tool supports more than 60 languages, which means diverse frontline workers can benefit from it.

Max is slated for general availability in the fall of 2023.

Scribble Data

Scribble Data is a machine learning and generative AI company, based in Toronto. The company’s flagship product, the Enrich Intelligence platform, helps enterprises build AI-powered data products for advanced analytics.

Recently it announced Hasper, a full–stack large language model (LLM)-based engine that provides engineering guardrails to bring the power of LLMs to enterprises, enabling streamlined data workflows and insights.

The system interfaces with all the leading foundation models, so teams can select the LLM that best meets organizational requirements for factors including cost, enterprise-grade security, and privacy.

The company says that Hasper’s ability to customize data products for each use case ensures a clear understanding of context and limitations, which reduces the risk of ‘hallucinations’(AI chatbots’ tendency to make up false information).

Anonymous Intelligence Company

Vancouver-based computational intelligence, decentralized network and data technology company Anonymous Intelligence Company (ANON) has launched a privacy-focused AI curation platform called Turminal.ai.

Launching on Jul. 10, the tool offers a suite of AI-powered programs designed to prioritize user privacy.

The product’s website reads: “Turminal.ai is our response to the AI privacy dilemma. Our app is built on ANON’s Limitless privacy technology, creating a secure tunnel between you and the AI infrastructure.This means you can enjoy all the benefits of AI without worrying about your privacy.”

The company boasts over 37,000 sign ups for the upcoming beta launch of Turminal.ai.

Xaba

Toronto-based Xaba is the developer of the first AI-driven robotics and CNC (computer numerical control) machine controller. Its solutions are designed for industries including automotive, construction, aerospace and more.

In February, it closed a round of seed funding to bring to market its AI-driven fabrication processes and intelligent autonomous machines. Hazelview Ventures, which led the funding round said:

“The company’s next generation solutions solve three key challenges and opportunities in the manufacturing sector, i.e., the need for highly accurate robots; the need for intelligent automation to reduce the requirement for human supervision in manufacturing; the need to drive more sustainability in manufacturing by eliminating the waste resulting from human errors, inaccuracies in manufacturing, and by enabling the use of more sustainable materials.”

A few weeks ago, it partnered with global aerospace company Lockheed Martin to test cognitive autonomous robots in airframe manufacturing.

Global mentions

To wind things up, here are a couple of interesting companies from elsewhere in the world.

Tabnine

Israel-based creator of an AI-powered assistant for developers Tabnine boasts of code quality as well as its one million monthly users and hundreds of thousands daily active users. 

The company, which helps developers automate the coding workflow, says it puts privacy and community at the forefront by never storing or sharing users’ code, and relying only on open-source code.

Recently, it extended its platform with Tabnine Chat, an AI code assistant that writes code and answers questions, even against organizations’ internal codebase if customers choose to connect it to their repositories. It is now available for free access and will be generally available to Pro and Enterprise customers by Fall 2023. 

Tabnine is privately held, with funding from Qualcomm Ventures, OurCrowd, Samsung NEXT, Khosla Ventures, and Headline. 

Bayer Crop

Israeli company Bayer Crop is leveraging AI to reduce the use of pesticides and drive sustainability.

For that purpose, it entered into a collaboration with another Israel-based company, Fermata, which developed an adaptive computer vision platform, Croptimus, designed to automatically detect pests and diseases at their earliest stages.

The system employs AI to analyze thousands of images collected daily by cameras installed within the facility to detect the tiniest indications of both pests and pathogens which, left untreated, quickly get out of hand.

“The endeavour was an unqualified success,” said Imri Gabay, crop protection customer advisory manager at Bayer.