As we bid goodbye to 2024, I have been reflecting on how generative AI has continued to evolve from a nascent technology into a powerful force driving real business value. In conversations with Canadian customers earlier this year, many were taking their first tentative steps, exploring how generative AI could impact their organizations through pilot projects and small-scale deployments.
When I was at Innovate West in May, Bridgitte Anderson, President and CEO of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, and I discussed the practical applications of generative AI for businesses and its role in solving Canada’s productivity challenges and the workforce. Now, as we end the year, the landscape has shifted dramatically. Companies have moved beyond AI experimentation to full-scale deployments, transforming specific parts of their business. Many of these projects, while not always immediately noticeable to consumers, have focused on optimizing back-end processes or enhancing customer-facing platforms, yielding impressive cost savings and productivity improvements.
B.C.-based companies like TELUS are already reaping the rewards, and it’s encouraging to see other Canadian businesses across all industries follow suit, establishing their own generative AI strategies.
AI Trends to Watch in 2025
Our recent Economic Impact Report highlighted AI’s potential to boost Canada’s economy by $230 billion and save the average worker 175 hours per year. The scale of this opportunity demands that every business leader pay close attention to key AI trends in 2025. Here are a few that I believe will positively impact key industries in Canada and drive real productivity growth across the country.
Companies will release more customer-facing AI products. AI-powered solutions will revolutionize the customer experience, enabling organizations to anticipate needs and forge stronger customer connections. Thomson Reuters, with the launch of Co-Counsel 2024, provided an early example. In 2025, organizations across all sectors will launch AI-powered products designed to increase revenue and efficiency, boost efficiency, and cultivate brand loyalty.
AI agents will streamline workflows and empower employees. As AI agents become more sophisticated, they’ll manage complex workflows, automate business processes, and empower employees. Bell Canada, an early adopter, partnered with us to transform their contact centre with AI, including with Conversational Agents and Agent Assist. Bell’s CEO recently described how this transformation improved the customer experience and generated $20 million in savings.
Canadian startups will scale with AI. Canada is already home to successful AI startups like Cohere. Next year, we’ll see Canadian startups launch AI-powered products across a diverse array of sectors. We’re proud to work with many emerging startups in Canada — like Viral Nation — and can’t wait to see what they’ll accomplish in 2025.
Beyond these overarching predictions, I’m particularly excited about how different industries will continue to adopt generative AI and drive innovation for their customers in 2025.
- Financial institutions will leverage AI-powered tools for deeper data analysis, uncovering investment opportunities and personalized customer insights. Canadian banks are already among the most active adopters of AI, and many have achieved early success like ATB Financial’s use of BigQuery and Google Cloud to build its modern data applications.
- Telecommunications companies including TELUS will continue to build on the significant improvements they’ve seen in efficiency, customer service, and reduced operating expenses by implementing Google Cloud’s Customer Engagement Suite and migrating more than 14 petabytes of data from siloed legacy systems to Google Cloud. For telecommunications, AI will move beyond supporting roles and fully integrate into network operations to help lower costs while enhancing scalability and responsiveness.
- In retail, AI will change shopping experiences, both online and offline. One example is the evolution of the drive-thru through natural language processing, as Wendy’s began piloting with Google Cloud in 2023. As customer-facing AI applications proliferate, we expect to see drive-thrus and digital ordering revolutionized by AI.
- Healthcare was a particularly interesting sector in 2024, with many organizations, including the Government of Nova Scotia, announcing investments in AI technology. Going forward, more jurisdictions will use AI to improve health systems and accelerate patient care, including through multimodal AI models that analyze images, medical records and genomic data to personalize medicine and improve health outcomes.
2024 laid a strong foundation for the future of AI in Canada. 2025 will be a year of increased innovation, broader adoption, and even greater impact. Now is the time for leaders across all sectors to seize the AI opportunity. This means not just experimenting with the technology but actively developing comprehensive AI strategies that integrate this transformative technology into every facet of their operations. I, for one, am incredibly excited to witness the accomplishments that lie ahead.
Sam Sebastian is the VP & Country Manager of Google Cloud Canada.
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