Canadian competitiveness depends on making a rapid transition to an AI economy, in which businesses have fully integrated AI into their operations and strategies.

Key actions for government:

• Foundation for growth: Unlock the value of data. Reform intellectual property laws, privacy laws, and data policies, and lay the groundwork for data trusts.
• Create operating certainty by clarifying how existing laws apply to AI, to enable businesses to make large, strategic investments in AI.
• Maintain our lead in AI research by helping top talent start AI businesses in Canada.
• Help companies commercialize and scale by facilitating their access to capital and global markets.

Key actions for business:

• Collaborate on the development of industry standards for AI. Business-originated standards can often be established faster than government regulation.
• Make better use of your own data—and share it. Pooling data can create far larger datasets than any one company could achieve solo, and can be done in a way that preserves the privacy and trust of Canadians.

Canadians worry AI could deepen problems such as bias and inequality. To earn citizens’ trust in AI, strong public policy action is needed to ensure algorithms built in Canada for Canadians are transparent and accountability is clear.

Key actions for government:

• Foundation for growth: Build systems for transparency and accountability by setting guidelines for AI “explainability,” developing standards for procedural fairness in AI-assisted decision-making, and developing guidance for government use of AI.
• Tackle bias in machine learning by clarifying how Canada’s anti-discrimination laws apply in an AI context.
• Modernize privacy rights by updating Canada’s privacy regime to reflect the realities of the AI economy.

Key actions for business:

• Build internal AI accountability through, for example, external algorithmic audits, reports to the board, internal oversight bodies, or voluntary industry self-regulating bodies.

Widespread AI adoption will fundamentally change how Canadians work. We need to better equip Canadians for a changing labor market and prepare them for an AI-driven world of work.

Key actions for government:

• Foundation for growth: Promote AI literacy. Invest in public education for AI literacy from kindergarten to postsecondary studies. Provide training in AI to public policy decision-makers too.
• Equip workers for a changing labour market by preparing them for jobs in the industries that will grow in an AI economy, such as health care.
• Upgrade our social safety net, adjusting eligibility rules and program design to handle short-term surges in AI-driven unemployment and the realities of a gig economy.

Key actions for business:

• Provide professional development that supports AI literacy. Give ongoing training to leaders and employees about how AI works and how to use it.