Celebrating 25 Years of Innovation, Impact and Commitment to Canada
In 2001, Google first opened its doors in Canada with a single employee. Nickelback was at the top of the charts and less than half of Canadian households had access to the Internet. Since then, three major technology shifts have unfolded - the internet became mainstream, it then shifted to mobile and now it's transforming with AI. As for Nickelback, they're still topping the charts all these years later!
As technology evolved over time, Canadians have always seized the opportunity to innovate, build, create, and connect in new ways. Every day at Google, I get to see local entrepreneurs using digital tools to reach global markets, creators sharing Canadian stories with the world, and organizations leveraging technology to strengthen their communities.
This year marks 25 years of Google Canada. To celebrate this milestone, we are sharing our new Economic Impact Report, released by Public First, alongside major new AI skilling initiatives designed to help Canadians and small businesses gain the skills they need to put AI to work.
25 Years of Growth with Google
Traditionally, our annual report measures year-to-year economic impact and highlights where we see future potential in the digital economy. This year, we took a different approach, reflecting on the long term contributions we’ve made alongside Canadian businesses and partners.
Over the last 25 years, Google’s products and services have generated more than $550 billion in economic activity for Canadian businesses, creators and developers, and tools like Google Search and Workspace have unlocked an estimated $410 billion in productivity improvements.
Beyond the economic figures, what grounds our work here is a long-term commitment to supporting Canadians and the organizations that serve them. Since 2009, we have contributed over $1.3 billion in philanthropic funding and social impact support to Canadian organizations and nonprofits, and helped more than 1 million Canadians build digital and AI skills since 2017.
These numbers reflect real impact across the country—from small businesses like Red Barn Brewing Co. saving time with Google tools, to Destination Canada leveraging AI to empower local businesses and governments with real-time tourism insights, Quebec City optimizing traffic flow with Project Green Light, and educators at the Ottawa Catholic School Board using Gemini to streamline administrative tasks.
Canada’s AI Opportunity
AI represents one of the greatest economic opportunities for the next quarter century. Public First estimates generative AI could boost Canada’s economy by $230 billion and save the average worker 175 hours annually. But while Canada ranks in the top 20% globally for conversational AI adoption per capita, almost 90% of current use is for personal and household tasks.
To help more people bring the benefits of AI into their careers and businesses, we are expanding our AI skilling commitments with two important new initiatives:
- Grow with Google’s biggest ever Canadian partnership: Grow with Google is partnering with YMCA Canada to distribute up to 100,000 scholarships for our AI programming, including the Google AI Professional Certificate and Google AI Essentials, through YMCAs across the country. This amounts to a 10x expansion of previously committed no-cost access to our AI skills training for Canadians.
- National AI Adoption Program for SMEs: Google.org is providing over $2.7 million CAD to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce (CCC) to help them deliver a new AI Adoption Program to over 10,000 SMEs through their national network. The program creates a scalable pathway from AI awareness to implementation through three levels of support tailored to businesses at different stages of readiness.
These new initiatives build on Google.org’s $13 million AI Opportunity Fund, which supported the development of Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute’s AI Workforce Readiness Program, Skills for Change’s AI Upskilling Program, Toronto Public Library’s (TPL) AI Learning Circles and First Nations Technology Council’s AI adoption toolkit for Indigenous Communities.
Here’s to What Canadians Build Next
Technology creates the greatest value when people put it to work in meaningful ways in their lives, careers and communities.
As we look ahead to the next 25 years, we're grateful to be part of Canada's story and we can’t wait to see what Canadians build next.
