Cohere Launches North 2 With Agent Memory, Skills and Spending Controls for Enterprises
Cohere released North 2 on October 5, 2026, an upgrade of its enterprise agent platform that adds a redesigned agent harness, memory across sessions, shared skills and libraries, and admin controls for token spending.
Key takeaways
- Cohere launched North 2, the second major version of its enterprise agent platform, on October 5, 2026.
- North 2 adds a redesigned agent harness, memory that persists across sessions, reusable skills, shared libraries and app creation from natural language.
- A new North Admin console sets quotas, rate limits and organization wide spending caps on tokens.
- North runs in the cloud, on premises or fully air gapped, and works with Cohere's models or a customer's own.
- Cohere did not publish list prices; VentureBeat reports that pricing depends on the scale and complexity of each deployment.
Cohere launched North 2 on October 5, 2026, a major upgrade of its platform for building and running AI agents inside companies. The release adds a redesigned agent harness, memory that carries over between sessions, reusable skills and new controls that cap how many tokens teams and agents can spend, the company said.
Cohere says it has rolled out North over the past year in finance, healthcare, telecommunications, manufacturing, energy and the public sector. North 2 is its answer to a common problem with AI agents at work: companies want automation, but also control over data and cost.
What is new in North 2?
North 2 rebuilds how agents run and adds features that let them remember and reuse work, according to Cohere's announcement. An agent harness is the software layer that plans steps, calls tools and keeps an agent on track; Cohere says the new one handles more complex, multi step automations.
The other additions, as Cohere lists them:
- Memory: agents keep context across sessions instead of starting from scratch every time.
- Skills: reusable capabilities that agents can call, so teams do not rebuild the same logic.
- Libraries: shared knowledge and assets the whole organization can draw from.
- Applications: decks, dashboards, documents and simple apps created from natural language in chat.
- Automations: templates, a drag and drop workflow builder and real time monitoring.
- Connectors: new links to Slack, SharePoint, OneDrive, Outlook, Exchange, Jira, Linear, Notion and GitHub, with financial data providers such as PitchBook, Crunchbase, S&P Global and FactSet planned.
How does it control cost and risk?
North 2 adds a console called North Admin that lets administrators set quotas, rate limits and organization wide caps on token use, Cohere said. Admins can watch activity in real time, see token spend per user and per agent, and set alert thresholds before limits are reached.
On security, Cohere says agents can be limited by "autonomy policies" to actions they are authorized to take and can be required to ask a human before critical steps. VentureBeat reports that the guardrails also scan for personal data and detect prompt injection, an attack in which hidden instructions in a document or web page try to take over an agent. Cohere lists SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001 and ISO 42001 certifications for the platform.
Where can North 2 run, and with which models?
North 2 runs in the cloud, in a private cloud, on premises or fully air gapped, meaning on systems with no connection to the internet, according to Cohere.
The platform is model agnostic: customers can use Cohere's own models or bring others. Cohere also says its models running on Nvidia Blackwell and Hopper GPUs produce more tokens per second per server, which lowers cost; that is a claim by Cohere and Nvidia, not an independent measurement. Kari Briski, vice president of generative AI at Nvidia, is quoted in Cohere's post saying the two companies' work helps "North 2.0 deliver more tokens for less."
Who is using it?
Cohere names LG CNS, which uses North for customers in South Korea, and Bell Cyber, which is bringing it into security operations, as customers in its announcement. On the same day, Cohere and PwC announced a global alliance, starting in Canada, in which PwC will help clients deploy North and Cohere's models.
VentureBeat reports that Cohere presents North's interchangeable components as a way to reduce vendor lock in, a frequent worry for companies choosing an agent platform.
What we don't know yet
- List prices for North 2, or how token caps translate into contract terms.
- How North 2 performs against competing agent platforms in independent tests.
- Which of the planned financial data connectors are available now and which come later.
- How quickly existing North customers will move to version 2.
FAQ
What is Cohere North?
North is Cohere's platform for building and running AI agents and assistants inside companies. It connects to a company's data and tools and can be deployed in the cloud, on premises or in air gapped environments.
What is new in North 2?
Cohere lists a redesigned agent harness for multi step automations, memory across sessions, reusable skills, shared libraries, app and document creation in chat, new connectors and a North Admin console with spending and access controls.
Does North 2 only work with Cohere models?
No. Cohere says North is model agnostic, so customers can use Cohere's models or bring their own.
How much does North 2 cost?
Cohere has not published list prices. VentureBeat reports that Cohere prices North based on the scale and complexity of a deployment, including infrastructure, usage, support and customization.
Sources
- North 2: Enterprise AI without compromises Cohere · cohere.com
- Cohere's North 2 puts AI agents on a budget and gives them a memory VentureBeat · venturebeat.com
- Cohere and PwC partner to accelerate secure enterprise AI adoption Cohere · cohere.com
Toto, AI Editor
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