Oracle has announced a partnership and investment in Cohere through which it will build generative AI services. Cohere models interactive chat features will generate text for product descriptions, blog posts and other content.
Oracle will leverage its solutions to bring new generative AI features across its portfolio, from applications to infrastructure.
Oracle intends to build generative AI experiences that will help organisations to automate end-to-end business processes and provide customers with insights at the point of need to enhance decision-making and customer experience. Built on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) will leverage Oracle’s Supercluster capabilities of integrated server, storage, networking, and software systems to maximise access to data sets that AI needs to analyse.
Clay Magouyrk, executive vice president of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, commented, “Only Oracle can offer a complete, end-to-end platform for generative AI, with advanced security, best-in-class data management, and a comprehensive portfolio of cloud applications able to address any business problem.
“Our partnership with Cohere will enable our customers to easily embed generative AI into their business. Using Cohere’s foundational models, customers can securely incorporate their own data to train specific models, deploy them on best-in-class AI infrastructure through OCI, and experience the business benefits immediately in their applications.”
Oracle can provide a private, secure and scalable environment that will deliver the surety for organisations that a single organisation provides their AI services. It means there is no transfer of data or insights outside of the Oracle infrastructure, and companies are assured privacy when their data is analysed.
Oracle will also ensure that the Generative Ai solutions will not cross borders between customer data. It will deliver tools to explain how the AI reached its decisions and what data was accessed. Oracle believes that OCI can deliver the highest performance and lowest cost GPU cluster technology. The proximity of systems also lowers the latency for large language model (LLM) training and reduces the total cost of ownership.
Investing in Cohere
Oracle was not the only firm that recently invested in Cohere. It recently raised $270 million in a round led by Inovia Capital. Other investors included Nvidia, Oracle and Salesforce Ventures, with other investors including DTCP, Mirae Asset, Schroders Capital, SentinelOne, Thomvest Ventures, and returning investor Index Ventures.
Aidan Gomez, CEO and co-founder, commented, “AI will be the heart that powers the next decade of business success. As the early excitement about generative AI shifts toward ways to accelerate businesses, companies are looking to Cohere to position them for success in a new era of technology. The next phase of AI products and services will revolutionize business, and we are ready to lead the way.”
For Oracle, this is more than an investment. The partnership will see Cohere leverage OCI, which means that Oracle can potentially see a huge return on its investment. If Cohere captures market share from solutions such as OpenAI and Google, Oracle will benefit. Also, success will mean further use of OCI, with Oracle benefitting again. Finally, Oracle will help the success of Cohere by embedding its services across its portfolio.
Martin Kon, president & COO, Cohere commented, “Oracle and Cohere have a shared focus on data security, model customization, and enabling enterprises to create business value. Together, Oracle and Cohere will help enterprises worldwide accelerate their AI initiatives, drive greater value, and deliver new levels of automation that maximize business success—while ensuring their data is secure and private.”
Bringing generative AI to Oracle solutions
While Oracle does not share the specific services it will deliver using Cohere, it does indicate some touchpoints. Oracle intends to embed generative AI services in every application, including Oracle Fusion Applications, Oracle NetSuite and other Oracle industry-specific applications. The intent is to enable customers to quickly deploy generative AI solutions to solve their “most pressing business challenges”. It will embed generative Ai into ERP, HCM, SCM, CX, healthcare and public safety.
Generative AI services will also be available in its database solutions, including Oracle Database and MySQL HeatWave. Details of the services and individual use cases are still unclear, but the potential, as other firms have shown, is immense. Oracle will also look to include the new generative Ai solutions within its cloud at customer offerings, enabling firms that retain infrastructure to benefit from the new capabilities without compromising security and data privacy.
Customers are excited by the prospect of embedding generative AI into their applications. They also indicate what they expect to see.
Kamran Zargahi, senior director Uber, said, “Generative AI is an amazing opportunity to support our business, delight our customers, and boost productivity. We’re excited to partner with Oracle and Cohere to achieve those goals together.”
Gareth Abreu, domain principal—HCM Business Platforms, Co-op, noted, “Utilizing generative AI in HCM applications will be a game-changer for organizations. We’re excited about what’s becoming possible in this space. Streamlining and making actions more efficient, intelligently guiding individuals to better outcomes, and elevating worker experiences are just a few of the benefits we expect to gain from the use of generative AI within Oracle Cloud HCM. This technology has the power to completely reinvent how we’re thinking about work and the work of HR specifically.”
Richard J. Barohn, MD, executive vice chancellor for Health Affairs and Hugh E. and Sarah D. Stephenson Dean, School of Medicine, University of Missouri, added, “University of Missouri Health Care is looking forward to simplifying physician and nurse workflows by incorporating generative AI into their Oracle electronic health record system, which will help them spend more time with patients to improve the quality of care and healthcare experience.”
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
Exciting times are ahead for Oracle customers. However, no timescales for these solutions were set, and embedding generative Ai across the platform may take time. The inference is that the Oracle solution will also enable customers to build their workflows and use cases.
What is clear from the investment is that Oracle believes it has found the right partner with Cohere, one that uses OCI, which gives it greater control over the functionality it will use. The question is whether Oracle will purchase the company outright and make its solutions a core part of the Oracle ecosystem at some future data.
