August 6, 2025
5 min read
Rebecca Bellan
Cohere’s North AI agent platform enables private deployment to keep enterprise and customer data secure behind firewalls.
Cohere’s new AI agent platform, North, promises to keep enterprise data secure
AI agent tools promise to reduce the drudgery of daily workflows, but many organizations hesitate to adopt them due to a pressing concern: data security. Large enterprises with trade secrets, companies in highly regulated industries, and government agencies have been cautious about integrating AI tools, fearing that their own or their customers’ data could be compromised or used to train foundation models. Canadian AI firm Cohere aims to alleviate these concerns with its new AI agent platform called North. This platform promises private deployment, allowing enterprises and governments to keep their data safe behind their own firewalls. “LLMs are only as good as the data they have access to,” said Nick Frosst, co-founder of Cohere, during a demo of North. “If we want LLMs to be as useful as possible, they have to access that useful data, and that means they need to be deployed in [the customer’s] environment.” Instead of relying on enterprise cloud platforms like Azure or AWS, Cohere can install North on an organization’s private infrastructure so it never sees or interacts with customer data. North can run on on-premise infrastructure, hybrid clouds, virtual private clouds (VPCs), or even air-gapped environments, Frosst explained. “We can deploy literally on a GPU in a closet that they might have somewhere,” he added, noting that North is designed to run on as few as two GPUs. Cohere also claims North includes advanced security protocols such as granular access control, agent autonomy policies, continuous red-teaming, and third-party security audits. The platform complies with international standards including GDPR, SOC-2, and ISO 27001.More than private deployments
Cohere, which has raised $970 million to date and is valued at $5.5 billion, has already piloted North with customers such as RBC, Dell, LG, Ensemble Health Partners, and Palantir. North offers typical AI agent features like chat and search, enabling users to answer customer support inquiries, summarize meeting transcripts, write marketing copy, and access information from internal resources and the web. All responses include citations and “reasoning” chains of thought, allowing employees to audit and verify outputs. The chat and search functionalities are powered by Cohere’s existing technologies: Command, a family of generative AI models, and Compass, a multimodal search tech stack. North runs on a variant of the Command model trained specifically for enterprise reasoning. “It goes beyond just Q&A and gets into doing work for you,” Frosst said. “North has a bunch of asset creation capabilities. It can make tables, documents, slideshows, and conduct market research.” In May 2025, Cohere acquired Ottogrid, a Vancouver-based platform specializing in automating high-level market research, which complements North’s capabilities. Like other AI agent platforms, North integrates with workplace tools such as Gmail, Slack, Salesforce, Outlook, and Linear. It also supports Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers to connect with industry-specific or in-house applications. “As you build confidence by chatting to the model, there’s a smooth transition from using it as augmentation to using it as automation,” Frosst added.Correction: A previous version of this article misstated Frosst’s title. We regret the error.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Cohere's North Platform
Q: What is Cohere's North platform? A: North is Cohere's new AI agent platform designed for enterprises and governments, prioritizing data security through private deployment options. Q: How does North ensure enterprise data security? A: North ensures security by allowing private deployment behind the customer's firewalls, on-premise infrastructure, hybrid clouds, VPCs, or even air-gapped environments, meaning Cohere's servers never directly interact with sensitive customer data. Q: What kind of infrastructure can North be deployed on? A: North can be deployed on on-premise infrastructure, hybrid clouds, virtual private clouds (VPCs), or air-gapped environments, and can even run on as few as two GPUs in a client's own setup. Q: What security protocols does North include? A: North includes granular access control, agent autonomy policies, continuous red-teaming, and third-party security audits. It also complies with international standards like GDPR, SOC-2, and ISO 27001. Q: What are the core functionalities of the North platform? A: North offers typical AI agent features such as chat and search for tasks like customer support, summarizing meetings, writing copy, and accessing internal resources. It also includes asset creation capabilities for documents, tables, and slideshows, as well as market research. Q: What Cohere technologies power North? A: North is powered by Cohere's Command generative AI models and Compass multimodal search tech stack. It utilizes a variant of the Command model specifically trained for enterprise reasoning. Q: Which companies have piloted North? A: Cohere has piloted North with customers including RBC, Dell, LG, Ensemble Health Partners, and Palantir. Q: What workplace tools does North integrate with? A: North integrates with workplace tools like Gmail, Slack, Salesforce, Outlook, and Linear, and supports MCP servers for industry-specific or in-house applications.Crypto Market AI's Take
Cohere's introduction of the North platform addresses a critical bottleneck in enterprise AI adoption: data security. By offering private, on-premise deployments, Cohere is making advanced AI agents accessible to organizations that previously couldn't leverage these tools due to sensitive data concerns. This move aligns with the broader trend of enterprises seeking greater control over their data in the age of AI. For businesses operating in highly regulated sectors or dealing with proprietary information, the ability to deploy AI without compromising data integrity is paramount. As AI agents become more sophisticated and integrated into workflows, solutions like North will be key to unlocking their full potential within the enterprise. This focus on security and private deployment is crucial for building trust and encouraging widespread adoption of AI technologies in sensitive business environments.More to Read:
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