Hey,

Welcome to Binary Output. I started this because there's almost no Canadian content covering what AI is actually doing to this country. Every week I bring you the story everyone else missed. Glad you're here.

June 4th might end up being a historic day for AI in Canada.

Prime Minister Carney stood in Toronto and announced Canada's first ever national AI strategy. He called it "AI for All." The numbers are big - $2.3 billion in new spending, 250,000 jobs promised by 2031, and a goal to push AI adoption from 12% of Canadian businesses today all the way to 60% by 2034. They're also building 850 megawatts of AI data centres by 2030 and giving one million post-secondary students free access to AI tools.

Here’s the thing, Canada is behind. Only 8% of our small businesses use AI right now. Nordic countries are at 29 to 42%. Germany is at 26%. France is at 18%. We are Behind.

But this strategy is a real starting point. The money is committed, the targets are specific, and for the first time Canada has a dedicated AI Minister in Evan Solomon. That matters. The next few years will show whether the ambition turns into actual infrastructure, actual jobs, and actual tools that everyday Canadians can use.

If you're a student, there's free AI training coming your way. If you run a small business, there's $700 million in funding being pointed at companies like yours to help you adopt AI tools. And if you're just a Canadian wondering what all of this means for your job - the government is at least now officially paying attention.

For a country that helped build modern AI, we've been embarrassingly slow to use it. This strategy won't fix that overnight. But after years of nothing, having a real plan with real dollars attached is not nothing. Now we watch to see if they follow through.

In Brief

Until next time,

Dean

P.S. Are you already using AI tools day to day, or still figuring out where to start? Hit reply - I read every one.