Cohere hires Meta AI vet Joelle Pineau to overhaul its AI research and product push.
The Canadian startup once seen as a challenger to OpenAI and Anthropic has struggled to keep up with the top AI models. Its business also hasn’t scaled like its competitors’.
Pineau, former VP of Meta’s AI research and longtime FAIR lab leader, joins as Chief AI Officer. She’ll steer AI strategy across research, product, and policy. Pineau helped build Meta’s Llama models before leaving in May after nearly eight years. 
This hire is a big bet as Cohere eyes up to $500 million in new funding at a $6.3 billion valuation, facing rivals with war chests in the tens of billions.
Cohere stays laser-focused on AI that solves practical enterprise and government problems, putting a premium on privacy and security—not chasing AGI like Meta and others.
Pineau told TechCrunch:
“A lot of players out there are quite singularly focused on AGI, superintelligence, and so on.
They haven’t necessarily figured out what this AI is going to be used for.”
She also took a shot at OpenAI’s recent GPT-5 launch, saying the path to AGI might be longer than expected. She sees room for practical AI to boost productivity now.
“Hiring a bunch of superstars doesn’t necessarily make a superstar team,” Pineau said,
adding the focus is on how people work together.
Cohere’s latest product is North, an AI agent platform enterprises can deploy on their own infrastructure. It’s aimed at sensitive customers like banks and federal agencies. Cohere hopes its support for private deployments beats cheaper open-source options.
Pineau plans to focus research on AI agents in secure environments and how they interact in real-world networks.
She inherits the challenge of replacing VP of AI Research Sara Hooker, who just announced her departure.
Meanwhile, Meta and OpenAI are offering jaw-dropping pay packages, making it tough for smaller players like Cohere to compete for top AI talent.
Pineau says Cohere’s leaner setup means quicker research cycles and tighter alignment with customers. The plan: smart bets on research that quickly turns into products—keeping Cohere relevant in a brutal AI race.
Joelle Pineau. Image Credits: Paul Morigi/Getty Images
