Applied AI and infrastructure took centre stage at the fourth annual event, while perceived existential risk rhetoric made US headlines

All photography Mélanie Olmstead unless noted.

Canada is in the midst of a diplomatic, commercial and political transformation. Mark Carney’s government reached 70% approval in a September Spark Insights poll, with the Liberals holding a 20-point lead over the Conservatives. At a time when so much political rhetoric depicts Canada as a country falling apart, that support accompanies a very different story: new investment commitments, closer international partnerships and an effort to build greater economic independence. Spark Insights⁠

ALL IN 2026 offered a view of the technology behind that transformation. Across two days in Montreal, the conference brought corporate strategy, research and public policy into the same conversation. The extent to which AI development and commercialization were being connected to Canada’s national objectives was notable. Organizers announced ALL IN brought together 10,000 AI leaders from 50 countries, connecting companies in healthcare, energy, aerospace and manufacturing with technology providers, Canada’s top 100 AI startups, investors and government representatives. “ALL IN has proven once again to be a launchpad for historic announcements, major commercial deals and key partnerships across business, the public sector and research,” said Isabelle Turcotte, Co-Founder and CEO of ALL IN. The event returns for its fifth edition in 2027.

Sovereignty, Canadian capabilities and bridges to Europe ran through the event. The commercial announcements gave those priorities substance: partnerships, funding, enterprise systems and the infrastructure needed to deploy them. Canada’s AI sector was demonstrating how it could help deliver the country’s economic and diplomatic ambitions. There was an even split between AI solution providers and enterprise adopters, positioning the conference as a meeting point between Canadian AI development and commercial demand.

Where there was very little activity was at the frontier, or in the fevered existential discourse currently occupying the American frontier. Canada was historically a driver of AI research innovation, with major contributions from researchers and institutions in Toronto, Montreal and Edmonton. The frontier has since shifted toward large-scale model development, where the United States and China currently produce most leading systems. Canada’s current AI activity is now concentrated in research translation, enterprise deployment, infrastructure, open systems and sovereign control. This is a not atypical shift in technology adoption in Canada: practical and risk averse. The sovereignty piece is now the wildcard.

The structure of ALL IN reflected that distribution: its sessions and announcements focused primarily on applying AI, building the infrastructure required to run it, and developing partnerships that extend Canadian capability across borders. There’s a reason for this and there’s a certain irony in the fact that tech community leadership is generally politically centred around a kind of conservatism/libertarianism while very articulate about wanting Canada to be a builder and more of a risk taker. The industry tends to support lower immigration, and less taxation, two paradoxical factors which contradict each other. A country can’t drive frontier innovation with 40 million people, negative population growth, limited public sector involvement and low immigration.

There are even those among us who would prefer we continue to hitch our wagon to Trump’s America, regardless of the cost. It says a lot about Mark Carney that he has decided to go in a different direction. The Cohere-Aleph Alpha combination agreement is the strongest tech expression of that direction. It brought Canadian and German enterprise-AI ambitions together in a proposed business combination, subject to approvals. Its significance extended beyond the companies themselves: it demonstrated how building strong European partnerships can help develop greater scale and reach. Reuters⁠

The same Canadian–German relationship appeared in LawZero’s funding announcement and the partnership between Mila and Germany’s DFKI. These developments connected commercial capacity with research into safer systems and practical applications. Federal conference summary⁠

European partnerships and open approaches were prominent parts of the strategic story. Mila and Mozilla announced an open-source AI initiative built around greater choice and control for adopting organizations. The program also featured Mistral, another European open-model ecosystems and open-weight deployment. In nine media items reviewed here, none was a US closed-model platform announcement. Mozilla⁠ · Conference program⁠

American companies remained significant participants, including OpenAI, Google DeepMind and US-funded NVIDIA. But their visibility was low. The strategic shift concerned the terms of participation: the ability to choose suppliers, retain authority over data, operate infrastructure and develop Canadian capabilities while working internationally.

The session breakdown shows how heavily national ambition now depends on commercial execution. Of 110 substantive sessions in the published program, 55 were assigned to applied AI and enterprise transformation. AI and society accounted for 21; data and infrastructure for 10; frontier AI for two; and physical AI and robotics for one. Another 21 had no displayed track assignment. Interestingly, there was almost no focus on one of Canada’s strongest strategic advantages in the sector, which is raw materials and mining.

The categories articulate the event’s program structure. Sovereignty, safety and international cooperation crossed several tracks, linking questions about economic direction to practical decisions about deployment. The announcement mix reflected that relationship between purpose and implementation. Healthcare collaboration, enterprise data controls, Indigenous data stewardship and open infrastructure address different parts of the same challenge: making AI useful while retaining meaningful authority over how it is deployed.

Léger’s 2026 AI Index findings provided a useful measure of the distance between the investment narrative and everyday adoption. The broad trends have changed little: 68% of employees reported using AI at work, but only 8% of organizations described themselves as advanced in their AI transformation; 61% of employees had received no AI training, and 46% of organizations using AI had measured no gains. That gap was visible outside the conference, where a large and vocal demonstration opposed further investment in AI.

Inside, AI was being presented as the infrastructure of Canada’s next economic phase; outside, the protest expressed a public concern about where that investment is going and who will benefit from it. Both scenes formed part of the conference’s political context.

The charts cover 110 scheduled substantive sessions and nine identified announcement or launch items. Sessions retain the published track labels; announcements are assigned one primary theme.

ALL IN took place during a week in which Canada’s wider strategy was coming into focus. Immediately beforehand, Carney’s Canada Investment Summit generated nearly $500 billion in investment commitments, according to the Prime Minister’s Office. The total includes financing and capital commitments extending over several years. Summit results⁠

AI was directly embedded in that investment agenda. The summit release included a $4 billion Radical Ventures initiative supporting Canadian AI scale-ups and Bell’s planned $52.5 billion AI infrastructure hub in Saskatchewan. These draw a straight line between the government’s investment strategy and the capabilities discussed at ALL IN. Summit results⁠ Carney also welcomed proposed EU associate membership for Canada, a first-of-its-kind offer, not an established treaty category. Reporting from Strasbourg⁠

The diplomatic opening, investment commitments and AI partnerships are related. Canada is seeking broader relationships and a stronger position within them. Technology is a critical factor in both forming those relationships and making them productive. Energy projects need forecasting, grid management and industrial efficiency. Manufacturers need automation, reliable logistics and secure information systems. International research partnerships need compatible infrastructure and clear authority over shared data. AI can support these activities, while investment in electricity, computing and connectivity supports AI itself.

The Mila–DFKI partnership makes that connection explicit through research on energy systems, agentic AI and trustworthy technology. It gives the Canadian–German relationship a practical research and industrial agenda. Mila–DFKI announcement⁠

This made ALL IN more politically significant than it ever has been, during a week when speculation about AI capabilities exploded into headlines and across major US media. Notably, this topic was nearly absent from ALL IN. Corporate announcements showed companies and institutions building capabilities that correspond to Canada’s wider priorities. The conference offered evidence of a country actively reorganizing its relationships and economic opportunities, despite the risks of US decoupling.

There is one major complication in this optimistic picture: Canadians’ happiness. Canada placed 25th in the 2026 World Happiness Report, compared with sixth in 2013. The report also identifies a longer-term decline in young people’s life evaluations across Canada and several other English-speaking countries. World Happiness Report⁠ · Report findings⁠

Strong approval of a government is now coexisting with widespread dissatisfaction in daily life. Canadians can support Carney’s international direction and economic strategy while struggling to see how their own lives will improve. Surveys from organizations like EKOS Research show that most Canadians are willing to sacrifice much to maintain our independence.

But it’s unlikely comfort with discomfort will last indefinitely. That distinction is critical for the next phase of the transition. Investment, technological capability and international influence need to produce benefits people can experience: better work, functioning services, greater affordability and confidence in their future.

The deterioration in perceived wellbeing may be due to circumstances beyond our control like the ongoing pandemic and US military aggression affecting life all over the planet, predating this government, but responding to it is now part of its responsibility and how long-term the government and leadership will be measured. Canadians are patient. The question is for how long, especially as some of the more vulnerable sectors of our population, suffer like seniors and the disabled, whose poverty continues to spread and deepen.

Carney’s government is making substantial progress in assembling the investment and relationships for Canada’s economic transition while strengthening its political position. ALL IN showed how the AI sector is contributing to that work. The next test is whether Canadians feel the progress as clearly as the government can describe it.