In an exclusive interview with CanadianSME Small Business Magazine, Asma Aziz, General Manager of Intel Canada, shares her vision for accelerating AI adoption among Canadian SMEs. With nearly two decades of global tech leadership, she emphasizes the importance of education, awareness, and partnerships in overcoming barriers, while offering practical advice on responsibly implementing AI to stay competitive. Highlighting Canada’s strength in AI research, Asma outlines a roadmap for businesses to embrace innovation, bridge the gap between ambition and execution, and prepare for a thriving AI-driven future.
Interview By SK Uddin
Asma Aziz is the General Manager for Canada at Intel Corporation, bringing nearly two decades of leadership experience in the global technology industry. Over her 19-year career at Intel, she has held several senior positions across Asia and the Americas, driving business growth, marketing excellence, and operational efficiency.
Most recently, Asma served as Regional CMO for North America and LATAM (Interim) and Director of Marketing for the Americas Territories, where she spearheaded marketing strategies that significantly strengthened Intel’s presence in key markets. Her career journey also includes impactful roles as Partner Marketing Lead and Global Consumer Campaign Manager. Earlier in her career, she played a pivotal role in the Asia Pacific region, leading campaigns that expanded Intel’s footprint and influence.
Recognized for her expertise in transformative growth strategies, building high-performance teams, and forging strong partnerships, Asma has consistently demonstrated her ability to lead in dynamic, competitive markets. She holds a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Program certification from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and is an alumna of Greenwich University.
In her current role, Asma is focused on advancing Intel’s growth in Canada, fostering strategic partnerships, and supporting the country’s digital vision by working closely with both public and private sectors.
What are some of the biggest barriers Canadian businesses face when adopting AI? And how can industry leaders like Intel help overcome them, these challenges?
Okay. So firstly, thank you so much for being here and spending your afternoon with us.
And thank you for this question. So from a Canadian business leader’s perspective as the GM of Canada, like I had mentioned, we’ve been in Canada for over 50 years. We are committed to the country and we are really fostering innovation and advancement in the tech industry. So whether it’s through our products, whether it’s through our initiatives, we believe that we can empower people and really potentially make every person’s life better on this earth, whether they are using a PC at their home or whether they are dealing with large amounts of data in a data center.
So really all the way from edge to cloud, from PC to data center is where our expertise is or where our technology support and helps people. Now, as far as you said that, there are challenges in the environmental concern. I believe that, as a country we can overcome a lot of these challenges through partnership.
So partnership in the public and the private sector is extremely important for us to be able to advance as a country and as a nation. So I think that would be something. And as we discussed today, there are a lot of strong building blocks that Canada has, whether it’s in terms of being innovative, whether it’s in terms of being agile, all we need to do together is to harness these, potentials and then also really, bridge the gap between those challenges and really take us from this ambition to leadership which can be done through partnership.
With AI adoption moving so quickly how is Intel ensuring that Canadian organizations, especially like when it comes to small and medium businesses, can implement AI responsibly while staying competitive on a global stage?
So you are right that, aI is moving very fast. As you and I speak, there will be multiple AI innovations happening all around us. A lot of times you know SK people think that AI is new. It’s been there for a very long time. However, where the change has happened is that in the past couple of years, the conversation was really centering around how do we do cost saving through ai?
Whereas today, the conversation has matured and we are really thinking about how do we truly get the right business outcomes with the injection of AI into our existing processes. So I think that’s something that’s been a change. Obviously the AI from the traditional models today to agentic AI has become much more autonomous, much more sophisticated as well.
So I think, these are some of the changes which has happened. If we talk about SMBs now, SMBs, obviously Canada is a huge SMB market, so from an Intel standpoint, how do we support our partners? So we call them our partners, our customers, our ecosystem players, both in the public and the private sector space is a through dissemination of technology.
We obviously support them, partner with them in understanding what their business needs are, and then helping them figure out the right technology solutions to resolve or to, achieve those business objectives. So that’s an area where we work very closely. As far as the SMBs concern. I think, you and I were talking about it before we sat down as well.
I think for SMBs, they will have to first figure out what are the particular areas where they could use or utilize ai, and the first step is really learning. So really educating themselves. That’s the first step. And then getting their workforce ready for that is the step number one. Once they get to that step, they will be able to figure out what are the areas in their businesses where, because see, there’s no one size fit all solution. So if, let’s say I’m A SMB in manufacturing and you are a small SMB who is dealing with client issues, our needs are very different, right? So we will have to understand. But if we both understand what is the potential of what is the capability of this technology, we will be able to deploy it based on our needs.
So I think that understanding, awareness, education is step number one.
What are the key barriers, preventing small and medium sized businesses from advancing their AI maturity and how can Intel help address them?
So I think the biggest barrier is, again, I, back to my same previous question, the biggest barrier is the education and understanding of what AI can do and also trying to adopt sometimes what works for a particular.
So yes, if there’s another business within your category, within your industry. You can still learn from that and take those learnings in. So I think people are not spending, or the SMBs have not spent that much time in understanding. They’ve always looked at that AI as something which is happening on the side.
It’s for big enterprises, it’s not for them. So I think mindset has been a big barrier. And how Intel or the local bodies can help is again, through education. We’ve got these skill gap courses available for ai which we work with the government. We worked with partners to disseminate those where we can help.
We can also help with our partners where SMBs can contact our channel partners our reseller, partner community, who can, understanding the individual requirements, suggest the right products. So I think those are the areas where we could help. We could also help with sharing a lot of examples from other SMBs, which could help our SMBs here.
Before we conclude, Asma, like where do you see the future of AI adoption in Canada over the next five to 10 years? And how can Canadian businesses prepare today?
So I see the future of Canada in AI to be extremely bright.
We are considered the world has eyes on Canada. We are considered the pioneer in ai adoption AI research. People like Yoshua Bengio great institutions which are hub of AI research and development are in Canada. Whether it’s Mila, whether it’s Vector ai. I, so I think we’ve got a lot going for ourselves and where we need to really work is to really bridge or connect the dots.
We’ve got the researchers, we’ve got the developers we’ve got the regulatories. We need some more support in really defining the path so that the country is considered really that poster child for ai. But if we do not take the right measures and steps today, we could be left behind.
I think that is something we’ve gotta get really in intentional about in deploying the right mechanism fostering the right environment where more folks can develop these grassroots AI applications, and then the whole industry and the country can benefit.
Do you have any direct message advice to small businesses in Canada? You can look in the camera and you can see your voice.
Yeah. So I would say that in Canada, and I think it holds true for the entire globe, but in Canada. Clearly SMBs are the backbone of this economy. So my message to the SMBs would be that please look at modern ways of doing business.
You have to, obviously you are smaller operations, you have to be more agile, you have to be more nimble, and technology really is your best friend in making sure that your ambition, the gap between your ambition and your leadership can be bridged with the right tool of right usage of technology.
So that’s my message to SMBs.
Disclaimer: This interview has been prepared strictly for informational and educational purposes by CanadianSME Small Business Magazine. The views and opinions expressed are those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect the official stance of the publication. Readers are encouraged to consider their own unique business contexts when applying any insights shared.
