Co.Labs, Saskatchewan’s first technology incubator, has opened artificial intelligence training to small and medium-sized businesses outside the tech sector, a move announced this week that lands against federal data showing rural Canadian firms use AI at less than half the rate of urban ones.
The Saskatoon organization, which has spent nine years working with early-stage technology founders, will deliver the training across the province, including in Regina and in rural communities where sessions can be run remotely, BetaKit reported Sept. 4, 2026. Executive director Jonathan Lipoth announced the expansion in a LinkedIn post, saying Co.Labs wanted to help non-tech companies use AI like a tech company. Early participants come from the accounting, agriculture and manufacturing sectors.
Lipoth told BetaKit the expansion followed requests from partners outside the technology industry. “It’s one of those things where it kind of just feels like market pull,” he said. The target client, he said, is a management or executive team that knows about AI but cannot work out how to deploy it across the non-technical parts of a business.
The gap Co.Labs is aiming at is measurable. Statistics Canada’s Canadian Survey on Business Conditions, released June 11, 2026, found 19.2 per cent of Canadian businesses used AI to produce goods or deliver services in the preceding 12 months, up from 12.2 per cent a year earlier and 6.1 per cent in the second quarter of 2024. Urban businesses reported 21.0 per cent. Rural businesses reported 9.9 per cent.
The sectoral breakdown matters more in Saskatchewan than the national average suggests. Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting recorded the lowest adoption of any industry at 4.5 per cent, followed by wholesale trade at 7.9 per cent and construction at 9.2 per cent, according to the agency. Information and cultural industries led at 42.3 per cent. The survey ran from April 1 to May 6, 2026, and drew 9,251 responses from a sample of 21,105 businesses.
The same data points to why advisory work is a hard sell to the smallest firms. Among businesses with one to four employees that reported using AI, 10.7 per cent used external consultants or vendors and 8.2 per cent hired staff with AI-related skills, Statistics Canada found. At firms with 100 or more employees, those figures were 30.2 per cent and 32.8 per cent. Cost was named as a barrier limiting AI use by 10.6 per cent of businesses overall, behind cybersecurity or privacy concerns at 13.4 per cent.
Co.Labs has federal money behind it. PrairiesCan announced $7.9 million for Saskatchewan’s technology sector in April 2026, including $3.7 million to Co.Labs through the Regional Innovation Ecosystems program. The remaining $4.1 million flows through the Regional Artificial Intelligence Initiative, a $200-million program that targets AI adoption in agriculture, health care and manufacturing.
Lipoth said the training will be priced according to the size and scope of the company, with free workshops planned this autumn, including at the Memo Festival in Saskatoon in October. Whether any of it moves the number is the open question. In the same Statistics Canada survey, 40.0 per cent of businesses said the use of AI is simply not relevant to them.
via BetaKit
