The University of Toronto is advancing responsible artificial intelligence adoption at scale through a multi-year partnership with Cohere, a Canadian-founded, Toronto-based global leader in sovereign AI. Founded in 2019 by former U of T students Aidan Gomez, Nick Frosst and Ivan Zhang, Cohere is the only Canadian company developing frontier models. Its secure, privately deployable agentic AI platform, North, will support coordination of complex tasks across different systems within U of T's forthcoming enterprise-wide AI platform. Donna Kidwell, U of T's chief information officer, said the partnership marks a homecoming and a new stage of evolution, bringing strategists, builders and community together to demonstrate secure, sovereign, human-centred AI deployment. Joelle Pineau, chief AI officer at Cohere, said the partnership combines U of T's research and education expertise with Cohere's secure, enterprise-grade technology for responsible adoption at scale. North will connect trusted information across university systems, coordinate workflows, and help faculty, librarians, staff and students work faster while keeping sensitive data under U of T's control. The initiative builds on recommendations from a task force struck in the spring of 2024, including U of T's AI Kitchen, which provides secure environments for AI projects with appropriate data access and technical frameworks. Now in its pre-launch phase, the AI Kitchen is engaging with the U of T community to understand desired tools, products, and services.