AI Forecast to Power a Decade of Economic and Job Growth in Canada

Canada is widely recognized as a global leader in artificial intelligence research, talent, and public policy. And according to a new report, it is uniquely placed to translate that leadership into real-world growth, productivity, and new jobs for Canadians. In fact, the report finds that generative AI alone can raise worker productivity by 8% and create over 35,000 innovation-driven jobs within the next five years.

New independent research commissioned by Metaand conducted by the Linux Foundationhighlights open source AI as a practical way for Canadian businesses to accelerate adoption and capture the full economic opportunity ahead. The report finds that AI could add up to 9% to Canada's GDP by 2035 and $180 billion annually by 2030,with significant room for more organizations to embed AI into their operations. Building on Canada's strong research and investment foundation, the focus now is on scaling deployment beyond pilots and integrating AI into everyday workflows. Open source models can help lower costs, speed experimentation, and make large-scale adoption more achievable across the economy.

Key opportunities identified by the report include:

• AI could add up to 9% to Canada's GDP by 2035 and $180 billion annually by 2030 , with generative AI delivering 8% productivity gains for workers.
• Twenty six percent of Canadian organizations have fully implemented AI today, highlighting a major opportunity to scale adoption across the economy.
• Nearly 90% of Canadian firms using AI report no job losses, and adoption is expected to create 35,000+ new roles over the next five years as work shifts toward higher-value tasks.
• Open models reduce costs, speed integration, and enable customization , helping Canadian businesses, particularly SMEs, move from pilots to production.
• Canadian startups building on open source AI show stronger early-stage valuations , benefiting from faster time to market and lower development costs.

The report also urges Canada to focus on adoption as a route to commercialisation. It calls for wider use of open source AI to help businesses adopt the technology faster, train workers with practical skills, and turn publicly funded research into real products and services. By making AI more affordable, transparent, and easier to adapt to Canadian needs, open source can help close the gap between research strength and commercial impact, supporting growth across the economy.

Read the full report to explore how Canadian companies across financial services, manufacturing, energy, healthcare, agriculture, and the startup ecosystem are already using open source AI to lower costs, scale faster, and build competitive advantage.