Across the public sector, artificial intelligence is moving from pilots to everyday use. The message from the AI community is consistent: the time has come to turn experiments into real deployments. Governments are preparing people for that shift too. In September 2026, the Government of Canada launched a National AI Literacy Initiative with Amii, aimed at up to one million post-secondary students, more than 50,000 educators and workers across the country.
One idea is widely shared: AI is coming to public administration, and people must remain accountable. For leaders who manage a strategic plan, the question becomes practical. Where can AI really help, and where should we draw the line?
AI adoption: Canada is catching up
Yet Canada and Quebec are adopting AI more slowly than many other countries. According to the Institut de la statistique du Québec, 12.7% of Quebec businesses used AI to produce goods or deliver services in 2025, compared with 13.3% in Ontario, and adoption grew more slowly in Quebec (up 3.3 percentage points, versus 7.8 in Ontario). Across Canada, about 12% of businesses used AI in 2025, below the OECD average. More recent Statistics Canada data, reported in June 2026, show adoption catching up to 19.2%, but the productivity gap remains: the OECD notes that Canada's labour productivity lags its peers. For public organizations and local businesses alike, adopting AI with the right guardrails is not a fad. It is a productivity lever.
What AI does well, and what it does not
Generative AI is good at rewriting, summarizing, translating and comparing text. It can spot an inconsistency between an action and an adopted policy, or suggest a clearer way to phrase an objective.
But it does not know your local context, the budget trade-offs under discussion or your relationships with partners. Above all, it cannot be accountable. When a council member asks why a target was missed, the answer has to come from a person.
3 practical uses in executing a strategic plan or an action plan
1. Improve the quality of writing
This is the simplest and safest use: correcting, clarifying or translating progress notes, action descriptions and periodic updates, directly where they are entered. The time savings are immediate and the risk is low, since the person reviews and accepts each suggestion.
2. Check compliance
AI can compare the content of your strategic plan and action plans with your organization's policies, bylaws and commitments, then flag gaps before they become problems. At Planivore, we built this compliance module thanks to an initiative funded by Scale AI, Canada's AI innovation cluster, with human review at every step.
3. Import an existing plan without retyping it
Many strategic plans still live in a PDF adopted by council or in an Excel file. AI can read these documents and extract their structure (priorities, objectives, actions, indicators) to turn them into a dynamic plan on a platform, with no manual data entry. The team reviews and adjusts, and tracking can start much sooner.
4 rules to keep accountability human
- AI turned on by choice. The organization decides whether and where AI is used, and can switch it off.
- Control over what AI sees. Action and indicator content yes; owner names and user emails no, unless explicitly allowed.
- A human in the loop. AI proposes a change; a person accepts or rejects it. The decision and the accountability stay human.
- Basic AI literacy for teams. Training users to recognize AI's limits (errors, overgeneralization) matters as much as the tool itself.
Where to start
Start small, where the risk is low and the benefit is visible: writing assistance for progress notes. Measure the time saved at your next reporting cycle. Only then explore compliance validation, with clear rules adopted by leadership.
AI will not make your strategic plan better on its own. But with the right guardrails, it can free your teams from repetitive work so they can focus on what matters: executing the plan and reporting on it with rigour.
Call to action
Volume 3 of our guides, From Strategy to Measurable Actions, helps you structure actions and indicators that lend themselves to rigorous tracking.
Want to see Planivore's AI in action? Book a 30-minute demo.
Sources
- Government of Canada, National AI Literacy Initiative (Sept. 9, 2026)
- Institut de la statistique du Québec, AI adoption and use in Quebec businesses, 2024 and 2025
- The Hub, Canada's 12 percent adoption rate (Apr. 22, 2026)
- The Hub, Canadian businesses are closing the AI adoption gap (June 26, 2026)
- OECD Economic Surveys: Canada 2025
