At Google, Aidan Gomez helped invent the transformer, and now at Cohere, he's using AI to help businesses.

In 2017, Aidan Gomez was an intern at Brain and contributed to the "Attention Is All You Need" paper, which introduced the transformer and sparked the generative artificial intelligence revolution.

"Gomez stated in a recent interview with CNBC that no one in the field who was present back then could have predicted the current level of technological advancement. He added that the models are now capable of performing tasks that he believed he would only see at the end of his career, in about 40 years."

Gomez, a computer science student at the University of Toronto, left Google in 2021 to co-found Cohere, an AI startup that makes generative AI models for companies. Cohere has raised money at a $5 billion valuation and is backed by investors.

"Gomez stated that research from MIT and Harvard has shown productivity gains through the use of technology. He explained that this can be quantified by comparing the productivity of knowledge workers using these models to those without them. After training, knowledge workers can see a 40% increase in productivity when using these models."

In June 2023, Cohere secured $270 million in funding at a $2.2 billion valuation, with investors including Salesforce and Oracle. Additionally, Cohere executives have attended AI forums at the White House.

Recently, Gomez stated that everything up until now had been accomplished with only five individuals. However, Cohere has experienced significant growth and now has approximately 400 employees, with its sales team continuing to expand rapidly.

Gomez mentioned how Cohere's model helped an insurer in submitting faster quotes to win over competitors when there was a request for proposal from a mining or pipeline firm.

Gomez called it a race.

"The first insurance provider that submits a reasonable bid will win the contract," he stated. "We enhanced the capabilities of their actuaries, who are responsible for researching the project, evaluating the risk, and generating a quote."

Gomez stated that by speeding up the actuaries, the business was able to secure more contracts.

"I never imagined that an insurance company specializing in natural resource projects would be utilizing large language models, but they are doing so."

CNBC's Steve Kovach and Aidan Gomez discussed the latest developments in the tech industry.