Cohere has released Command A+, a new AI model available for free download under an open-source license. Any company, developer, or government body can take this model, run it on their own servers, and use it without sending data to Cohere or any external cloud platform. This is the first time Cohere has released a model under such a permissive license, and the timing is deliberate.
The practical implication for business operators is straightforward. A model like this can power internal tools: a system that answers employee questions using company documents, analyses contracts, processes spreadsheets, translates communications across 48 languages, or handles complex multi-step research tasks. Previously, doing all of this required either buying access to cloud-based AI services or deploying multiple separate tools. Command A+ consolidates those into one model.
The hardware requirements have been compressed significantly. Cohere applies a technique that reduces the model's memory footprint, allowing this large and capable model to run on as few as two server chips of the type most enterprise data centres already have. According to an independent benchmark, Command A+ ranks on par with Anthropic's Claude 4.5 Haiku on general intelligence tests, while producing outputs faster than several comparable models on the market.
One feature worth noting for regulated industries is native citation generation. When the model retrieves information from a document or internal database, it labels every factual claim with the specific source it drew from. For insurance, legal, or financial services firms, this traceability is the difference between a tool that staff can trust and one they cannot.
This launch cannot be read in isolation from what Cohere is doing at the company level. Just weeks ago, Cohere announced a merger with Germany's Aleph Alpha, creating a combined entity valued at around $20 billion with dual Canadian and German roots. The Canadian and German governments both supported the deal publicly. Aleph Alpha brings enterprise relationships with Deutsche Bank, SAP, and Bosch, plus deep roots in European public sector procurement. The combined company will also deploy through Schwarz Group's private cloud platform, the same conglomerate that owns Lidl.
Cohere reported $240 million in annual recurring revenue for 2025, up from $30 million in 2024. Around 85% of that revenue comes from private deployments, primarily finance, healthcare, and government. The customer list includes RBC, Bell Canada, Dell, Fujitsu, and the Canadian federal government. Quarter-over-quarter growth exceeded 50% throughout 2025.
The wider context matters here. Gartner has predicted that 65% of governments will introduce technology sovereignty requirements by 2028. McKinsey research identifies a global sovereign AI opportunity worth an estimated $1.5 trillion, with roughly $120 billion concentrated in Europe. The demand is real, but McKinsey also notes that sovereignty alone rarely drives procurement decisions: price, performance, and reliability still dominate. That is exactly what Cohere is addressing with Command A+. By releasing it free and open-source, it removes the cost barrier and the vendor lock-in concern in one move.
The honest caveat is that deploying a model like this still requires a capable IT team or a specialist partner. It is not a product a business can simply switch on. But for any organisation that has been exploring private AI deployment and hit a wall on cost or data concerns, Command A+ lowers the entry point considerably. The question is whether they have the infrastructure and the people to use it.