Toronto and ALL IN Bet on AI to Solve Urban Operational Hurdles
AI-generated image · Bay Street Wire
A new competition seeks to bridge the gap between Canadian AI startups and municipal procurement, focusing on infrastructure and efficiency.
The City of Toronto is collaborating with the AI and technology gathering ALL IN 2026 to launch the Smart Cities AI Challenge. According to BetaKit, the competition aims to connect Canadian AI startups with municipal governments to solve specific operational problems, helping companies secure first public-sector clients and scale their technology within Canada.
Scheduled for September 16-17 in Montréal, the challenge requires competitors to link their AI solutions to specific use cases, including sustainability, social services, public safety, infrastructure coordination, and urban mobility. BetaKit reports that six finalists have been shortlisted: Kingston-based Lawtonica, Montréal-based Cyberdefence AI, Scentroid, Vancouver-based Industrio AI, Toronto-based Readocracy, and Montréal-based Tbmaestro.
Isabelle Turcotte, Co-Founder and CEO of ALL IN, stated that the initiative is designed to move beyond experimentation and create deployment opportunities for Canadian firms. The City of Toronto is supporting this effort by bringing a 40-person delegation to the event.
This competition is one of three AI challenges at ALL IN 2026. BetaKit notes that the City of Montréal is partnering on the Reinventing the Citizen Experience AI Challenge to automate the processing of resident reports regarding graffiti, potholes, and damaged infrastructure. Additionally, the AI for Real Impact Challenge is being run with Germany's Federal Ministry for Digital Transformation and Government Modernisation and the digital network de:hub to identify AI systems producing measurable outcomes across sectors such as healthcare and manufacturing.