By CohereLearning Objectives
- Understand how North deploys agentic AI behind enterprise firewalls
- Identify what makes North's architecture different from cloud-hosted AI platforms
- Evaluate when data sovereignty requirements make North the right choice
What Is North?
North is Cohere's enterprise agentic AI platform, launched in summer 2025. It is deployed entirely behind customer firewalls — meaning no data leaves your infrastructure. Built on Command A (111 billion parameters, 256K context, runs on just 2 GPUs), North enables enterprises to build secure AI agents with full data control.
Customers include RBC (Royal Bank of Canada), Dell, and LG CNS — organizations where data sovereignty is not optional.
💡Key Concept
Behind the firewall: Most enterprise AI platforms (Azure AI, Vertex AI, Bedrock) run in the vendor's cloud. North runs in your cloud or on your servers. This is critical for regulated industries (banking, healthcare, defense, government) where data residency laws prohibit sending data to third-party infrastructure.
✅Tip
Try North: cohere.com/north — enterprise deployment; contact sales for access
Pricing & Access
| Deployment | Cost | Details |
|---|---|---|
| On-premise | Enterprise contract | Deployed on your own servers |
| Private cloud (AWS/Azure/GCP) | Enterprise contract | In your cloud tenant, not Cohere's |
| Cohere Cloud | Usage-based | For organizations without on-premise requirements |
Core Capabilities
Any-Cloud or On-Premise Deployment
North runs on AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, or on-premise infrastructure — all within your security perimeter. This is Cohere's primary differentiator: the same enterprise-grade AI available on cloud platforms, but with zero data leaving your organization.
Command A Foundation
Built on Command A (111 billion parameters, 256K context), which matches or exceeds GPT-4o on enterprise tasks across 23 languages while running on just 2 GPUs — making on-premise deployment economically viable.
RAG Optimization
Cohere's Rerank API improves search result relevance for Retrieval-Augmented Generation, a specialized capability that significantly improves the accuracy of AI systems that need to search and reference enterprise documents.
Agentic Workflows
North enables building multi-step AI agents that can search internal knowledge bases, take actions within enterprise systems, and orchestrate complex workflows — all while keeping data behind the firewall.
Strengths
- Data sovereignty: No data leaves your infrastructure — critical for regulated industries
- Any-cloud deployment: AWS, Azure, GCP, or on-premise — your choice
- Efficient hardware: Command A runs on 2 GPUs, making on-premise economically viable
- RAG-optimized: Rerank API purpose-built for enterprise document search
- Multilingual: 23 languages natively — relevant for global enterprises
Limitations & Considerations
- Enterprise-only: Not available as a consumer product or for small teams
- Deployment complexity: On-premise requires infrastructure management
- Smaller ecosystem: Fewer pre-built integrations than Microsoft or Google platforms
- No consumer mindshare: Less brand recognition than ChatGPT or Gemini
Key Takeaways
- North is Cohere's enterprise AI platform deployed behind customer firewalls — no data leaves your infrastructure
- Built on Command A (111 billion params, 2 GPUs) — making on-premise deployment economically practical
- Customers include RBC, Dell, and LG CNS — organizations where data sovereignty is mandatory
- Best for regulated industries (banking, healthcare, defense) that need enterprise-grade AI with full data control
