Joëlle Pineau

Interview

September 28, 2026

Cohere’s chief AI officer: US and China will hold us ‘by the throat’ if we don’t develop local capabilities

The merger between Cohere and Aleph Alpha was signed earlier this month in a move pitched as a win for sovereignty, and opens the door for more consolidation

Smaller players outside the US and China need to join forces to create credible alternatives to the dominant AI model makers, Joëlle Pineau, the chief AI officer of Canadian startup Cohere, tells Sifted in an interview, just over a week after her company officially signed an agreement to merge with German AI startup Aleph Alpha.

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Daphné Leprince-Ringuet

Daphné Leprince-Ringuet is a senior reporter for Sifted, based in Paris. She covers French tech and writes Sifted's AI and Deeptech newsletter . You can find her on X and LinkedIn

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