Command A is Cohere’s most powerful enterprise LLM for real business tasks such as tool use, retrieval-augmented generation, agents, and multilingual workflows.
The model has 111 billion parameters, supports 23 languages, features a 256k context window, and according to Cohere is designed for a comparatively low inference footprint.
Command A
LLM “Our largest, most performant model, ideal for building enterprise agents with a low compute footprint.” - “Max performance, minimal compute”
Location: Canada ⓘ Cohere Inc., 171 John Street, Suite 200, Toronto, Ontario M5T 1X3, Canada.
Enterprise / Private Deployment VPC, on-premises, or air-gapped deployment for companies with strict data protection, security, and data residency requirements.
North / Compass / Embed / Rerank Complementary Cohere products for agents, enterprise search, embeddings, and retrieval
Target Audience
Command A is aimed primarily at companies, developer teams, AI product teams, IT architects, regulated industries, SaaS providers, banks, insurance companies, public authorities, healthcare-related organizations, and large knowledge organizations. The model is intended less as a consumer chatbot and more as an enterprise building block for production AI systems that need to access company data, tools, APIs, vector databases, and internal knowledge sources. In its documentation, Cohere emphasizes Tool Use, RAG, agents, and multilingual business applications in particular as core strengths.
Outstanding Features
Outstanding features include the 256k context window, the focus on Retrieval-Augmented Generation, Tool Use, agent workflows, structured outputs, citations/grounding, and multilingual applications in 23 languages. Command A can be connected to external tools such as APIs, search engines, databases, and vector databases, making it suitable for realistic enterprise processes, not just isolated chat responses. Cohere also highlights that Command A requires only two A100/H100 GPUs to operate, which can make it more attractive for private or on-premise deployments than significantly larger models.
Most Important Use Cases
The most important use cases are internal knowledge assistants, RAG systems, enterprise search, customer service automation, agents with tool access, API orchestration, document QA, financial/reporting analysis, multilingual communication, translation, code/SQL generation, process automation, and research agents. In the technical report, Cohere explicitly describes Command A as a model for real enterprise settings, including RAG, Tool Use, agentic workflows, multilingual tasks, and code/SQL-related enterprise scenarios.
Usage & Notes
Command A can be used via Cohere’s API, including Chat V2, Chat V1, and Chat Completions; Cohere also provides an OpenAI-compatible API to make it easier to switch existing OpenAI SDK integrations to Cohere. For production use, companies should decide early on whether they want to use the public Cohere Platform, a cloud AI service such as AWS/Azure/OCI, a private cloud/VPC, Model Vault, or on-premises. For GDPR-sensitive data, it is especially important to document in advance the training opt-out, DPA/AVV, subprocessors, region, data retention, logging, tool integrations, and possible third-country transfers.
| Target Audience | Assessment |
|---|---|
| Developers / AI teams | Highly suitable – for LLM applications, RAG, Tool Use, agents, and multilingual enterprise workflows. |
| Large enterprises | Highly suitable – especially because of private deployment, VPC, and on-premises options. |
| Regulated industries | Highly suitable – if private deployment, data control, and own infrastructure are important. |
| SaaS / product teams | Suitable – for API-based AI features with Cohere models. |
| Private individuals | Rather unsuitable – Command A is primarily an enterprise/API model, not an end-user chatbot. |
Command A
Enterprise chat, RAG, Tool Use, agents, long contexts, multilingual business workflows, SQL/code-related tasks. Cohere states 111B parameters, 256k context, and a focus on Tool Use, RAG, agents, and multilinguality.
Command A Reasoning
Complex problem-solving, agentic workflows, multi-step reasoning, Tool Use, RAG, demanding enterprise tasks. Cohere states 111B parameters, 256k context, and up to 32k output tokens.
Command A Vision
Image and document understanding, charts, tables, OCR, visual analysis, document QA, multilingual image/text tasks. Cohere states 128k context and up to 20 images per request.
Command A Translate
Professional translation, multilingual business communication, localization, cross-lingual workflows. Cohere lists Command A Translate as part of the Command model family.
Hosting & Data
1) On-prem / local hosting
Meaning: The company operates the solution on its own hardware or within its own infrastructure. In the strictest sense, not only the application runs locally, but ideally the model as well.
2) Private cloud / data center
Meaning: The solution runs in a dedicated or more clearly separated cloud environment, often with a hosting provider or hyperscaler, but in a German data center or in a particularly controlled environment.
3) EU SaaS / managed
Meaning: The provider operates the solution itself as a service. The company uses the tool as a ready-made cloud service, ideally with EU data residency.
4) Hybrid
Meaning: One part of the processing remains internal / local / in a private cloud, while another part runs in an external cloud or EU SaaS.
5) AVV / DPA
Meaning: This is the data processing agreement or Data Processing Addendum. It governs that the provider processes personal data on behalf of the customer and is bound by the customer's instructions.
6) No training
Meaning: The provider does not use your prompts, uploads, attachments, chat histories, or outputs for training or improving the general model — ideally excluded by contract.
7) Open-source / transparency path
Meaning: There is a path toward greater technical transparency and sovereignty, for example through:
- open models
- documented components
- self-hostable parts
- traceable architecture
- export / switching options
| On-prem / local hosting | ✅ |
| Private cloud / data center | ✅ |
| EU SaaS / Managed | ⚠️ |
| Hybrid | ✅ |
| DPA / AVV | ✅ |
| No training on customer data | ⚠️ |
| Open source / transparency path | ⚠️ |
On-prem / local hosting: supported
Cohere refers to private deployments as “on-premises” and explains that customers can run the models on their own hardware or within their own infrastructure; furthermore, prompts, outputs, and fine-tunes are intended to remain entirely within the customer’s environment.
Private Cloud / Data Center: Covered
Cohere refers to private deployments in a VPC as well as “Model Vault” as logically isolated, dedicated, and fully managed environments. The website explicitly mentions data sovereignty, governance, and suitability for strict data residency requirements.
EU SaaS / Managed: Partially
A managed SaaS platform is clearly offered. However, the pages found do not specify any concrete EU/EEA data residency or an EU data center for the standard SaaS offering. Therefore, only partially covered.
Hybrid: covered
Cohere explicitly mentions “public/hybrid cloud” as a deployment option to combine private infrastructure with public cloud resources and run regulated workloads privately.
T&C / DPA: Covered
The Enterprise Data Commitments document states that a DPA is provided for potential and existing SaaS customers upon request via [email protected].
No training: partially
For SaaS, there is an opt-out option in the dashboard; according to the website, if you opt out, prompts and generated content are not used for training. For private and third-party deployments, Cohere does not receive or process prompts or generated content, according to the website. However, this is not described as a general default for standard SaaS, but rather as a setting or enterprise control.
Open Source / Transparency Path: Partial
A transparency/sovereignty path is partially evident: Cohere refers to open research and private/self-hostable deployments; additionally, the Command A+ blog mentions an “Open-Source Enterprise AI Model.” However, the pages found do not provide a clear, complete list of components for Command A itself or for specific open-source components of the provided solution.
Data Processing
The website describes four relevant operating models: SaaS on Cohere infrastructure, cloud AI services via third-party providers, private cloud/VPC, and on-premises. For private and third-party deployments, Cohere is not supposed to receive or process customer prompts or generated content. For SaaS, there is logging and monitoring, regular deletion of logged prompts and generated content after 30 days, an optional opt-out from training, and, for enterprise customers, zero data retention upon request. A specific EU/EEA SaaS location is not specified on the pages found.
Conclusion
For a European directory, Cohere/Command A can best be classified as conditionally GDPR-compliant: The best-documented approach is private deployment, VPC, or a third-party cloud under the customer’s own data control, as Cohere has no access to prompts or outputs in these environments, according to its website. The standard SaaS offering has been improved in terms of data protection through a DPA, opt-out, and ZDR, but due to the lack of clearly documented EU/EEA data residency and documented international transfers, it cannot be verified as fully GDPR-compliant for the entire EU/EEA without further review.
Sources
- https://cohere.com/enterprise-data-commitments
- https://cohere.com/deployment-options
- https://docs.cohere.com/docs/private-deployment-overview
- https://cohere.com/private-deployments
- https://cohere.com/security
- https://cohere.com/blog/iso-42001-and-iso-27001-certifications
- https://cohere.com/ja/privacy
- https://trustcenter.cohere.com/vite/assets/externalTrustCenter-25d91280.js
| On-prem / local hosting | ✅ |
| Private cloud / data center | ✅ |
| EU SaaS / Managed | ⚠️ |
| Hybrid | ✅ |
| DPA / AVV | ✅ |
| No training on customer data | ⚠️ |
| Open source / transparency path | ⚠️ |
On-prem / local hosting: supported
Cohere refers to private deployments as “on-premises” and explains that customers can run the models on their own hardware or within their own infrastructure; furthermore, prompts, outputs, and fine-tunes are intended to remain entirely within the customer’s environment.
Private Cloud / Data Center: Covered
Cohere refers to private deployments in a VPC as well as “Model Vault” as logically isolated, dedicated, and fully managed environments. The website explicitly mentions data sovereignty, governance, and suitability for strict data residency requirements.
EU SaaS / Managed: Partially
A managed SaaS platform is clearly offered. However, the pages found do not specify any concrete EU/EEA data residency or an EU data center for the standard SaaS offering. Therefore, only partially covered.
Hybrid: covered
Cohere explicitly mentions “public/hybrid cloud” as a deployment option to combine private infrastructure with public cloud resources and run regulated workloads privately.
T&C / DPA: Covered
The Enterprise Data Commitments document states that a DPA is provided for potential and existing SaaS customers upon request via [email protected].
No training: partially
For SaaS, there is an opt-out option in the dashboard; according to the website, if you opt out, prompts and generated content are not used for training. For private and third-party deployments, Cohere does not receive or process prompts or generated content, according to the website. However, this is not described as a general default for standard SaaS, but rather as a setting or enterprise control.
Open Source / Transparency Path: Partial
A transparency/sovereignty path is partially evident: Cohere refers to open research and private/self-hostable deployments; additionally, the Command A+ blog mentions an “Open-Source Enterprise AI Model.” However, the pages found do not provide a clear, complete list of components for Command A itself or for specific open-source components of the provided solution.
Data Processing
The website describes four relevant operating models: SaaS on Cohere infrastructure, cloud AI services via third-party providers, private cloud/VPC, and on-premises. For private and third-party deployments, Cohere is not supposed to receive or process customer prompts or generated content. For SaaS, there is logging and monitoring, regular deletion of logged prompts and generated content after 30 days, an optional opt-out from training, and, for enterprise customers, zero data retention upon request. A specific EU/EEA SaaS location is not specified on the pages found.
Conclusion
For a European directory, Cohere/Command A can best be classified as conditionally GDPR-compliant: The best-documented approach is private deployment, VPC, or a third-party cloud under the customer’s own data control, as Cohere has no access to prompts or outputs in these environments, according to its website. The standard SaaS offering has been improved in terms of data protection through a DPA, opt-out, and ZDR, but due to the lack of clearly documented EU/EEA data residency and documented international transfers, it cannot be verified as fully GDPR-compliant for the entire EU/EEA without further review.
Sources
- https://cohere.com/enterprise-data-commitments
- https://cohere.com/deployment-options
- https://docs.cohere.com/docs/private-deployment-overview
- https://cohere.com/private-deployments
- https://cohere.com/security
- https://cohere.com/blog/iso-42001-and-iso-27001-certifications
- https://cohere.com/ja/privacy
- https://trustcenter.cohere.com/vite/assets/externalTrustCenter-25d91280.js
Strengths & weaknesses at a glance
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
|---|---|
| • Very strong for RAG, tool use, agents, and enterprise automation. | • Command A is primarily a text model; Command A Vision is provided separately for image input. |
| • 256k context window for long documents and large knowledge contexts. | • The research weights are CC-BY-NC, so they are not freely available for commercial use. |
| • Supports 23 business languages, including German, English, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Arabic. | • According to the Trust Center, Cohere SaaS runs on Google Cloud in US-Central; EU-only SaaS is not documented for the public Cohere platform. |
| • Comparatively efficient operation: Cohere cites two A100/H100 GPUs as the hardware requirement. | • According to the Trust Center, a request or NDA is required for a DPA/AVV. |
| • Flexible deployment options: Cohere Platform, Cloud AI Services, Private Cloud/VPC, and on-premises. | • For productive use of newer variants such as Command A Reasoning, additional sales clarifications may be necessary. |
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GDPR-compliant usage possible?
From an EU/EEA perspective, GDPR-compliant use is possible, but this has not been generally demonstrated for standard SaaS. Positive aspects include a published privacy policy, a DPA/AVV available upon request, an opt-out option for model training, zero data retention for enterprise customers, and private deployments in which, according to the website, Cohere does not receive any prompts or generated content. At the same time, the website does not specify a concrete EU/EEA server location for the SaaS version; furthermore, the website refers to international data transfers and, in the Trust Center, to subprocessors located in the U.S., among other places. Therefore, its use in the EU/EEA is generally viable under certain conditions—particularly via private deployment, VPC, or a third-party cloud with independent data control—but not solely based on the standard SaaS documentation.
Positive
The following are confirmed: a privacy policy is available; a DPA/AVV for SaaS is provided upon request; an opt-out option for training is available in the dashboard; zero data retention for Enterprise is available upon request; several private deployment models, including on-premises and VPC; according to its website, Cohere does not process customer prompts or generated content for private and third-party deployments; ISO 27001, ISO 42001, and SOC 2 Type II are mentioned.
Negative
Negative or limiting aspects include: The website does not specify a concrete EU/EEA server location or a specific EU data center for the standard SaaS offering; explicit EU data residency for Cohere SaaS is not indicated on the pages reviewed; Subprocessors listed in the Trust Center are located, among other places, in the U.S.; the privacy policy describes international data transfers across jurisdictions. As a result, significant compliance verification efforts remain necessary for pure SaaS use within the EU/EEA.
Server Location
The website does not specify a specific server location or data center in the EU or EEA for the Cohere SaaS. Instead, it mentions flexible deployment options for on-premises, VPC, third-party cloud, and “meeting strict data residency needs.” The Trust Center lists subprocessors with locations in the U.S., among other places. For applicant data, the website states that processing takes place in Canada and the U.S.; for product/SaaS data, no specific EU server location was mentioned on the pages found.
