Vendor profile · Directory · Managed service
TELUS Digital
The telecom-owned data giant: TELUS’s digital arm runs one of the world’s largest AI data operations, built on the $935M acquisition of Lionbridge AI.
| Model | Managed AI data services + 1M-contributor AI Community |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2005 (as TELUS International) |
| Headquarters | Vancouver, Canada |
| Pricing | Not published — enterprise programs, sales-led |
| Website | www.telusdigital.com |
What TELUS Digital does
TELUS Digital began as TELUS International in 2005, rebranded in September 2024, and was taken fully private by TELUS Corporation on October 31, 2025. Its AI Data Solutions line descends from Lionbridge AI, acquired in a $935M deal that closed December 31, 2020, plus crowdsourcing platform Playment (2021).
The business combines managed enterprise data programs — collection, annotation, search relevance, evaluation — with an AI Community it reports at over one million contributors across 118+ countries and 500+ languages and dialects, run on its Ground Truth Studio tooling.
Strengths
- Enormous reported contributor base with deep language coverage
- Lionbridge AI heritage in speech, search and localization data
- Public-company-grade compliance and delivery infrastructure
Considerations
- No published pricing; enterprise sales motion
- Now private inside TELUS — reporting transparency will narrow
- Breadth-first BPO DNA; frontier-lab expert work is not its center
Other managed services in the directory
- Scale AI — The largest enterprise data engine: annotation, RLHF, evaluation and red-teaming delivered as managed programs for frontier labs and governments.
- Appen — The category’s longest-running operator: a publicly traded managed data provider with a crowd of over one million contributors in 170+ countries.
- Surge AI — The bootstrapped quality maximalist: over $1 billion in 2024 revenue with no outside capital, built on credentialed experts rather than crowd volume.
- iMerit — A managed data-services company that pairs employed specialist teams with its Scholars expert network — and, since 2026, sits inside EXL.
- Sama — The original impact-sourcing annotation company: a Certified B Corp running managed programs with its own full-time workforce in Kenya and Uganda.
- CloudFactory — A managed-workforce company: trained analyst teams in Nepal and Kenya delivering annotation and data processing as a consumption-priced service.
- Cogito Tech — A US-registered managed annotation company whose India-based workforce and specialist consultants concentrate on healthcare, legal and financial AI data.
- Label Your Data — A managed annotation service that does the rarest thing in this market: publishes its per-unit prices, with no minimum order.
- Zilo AI — A Bangalore staffing-and-annotation firm with a distinct model: its annotators work inside the platform you already use, instead of selling you theirs.
Frequently asked questions
What does TELUS Digital do?
The telecom-owned data giant: TELUS’s digital arm runs one of the world’s largest AI data operations, built on the $935M acquisition of Lionbridge AI.
How much does TELUS Digital cost?
TELUS Digital does not publish pricing (not published — enterprise programs, sales-led). Any figure quoted by third parties is an estimate; budget discovery requires engaging the vendor directly.
Who is TELUS Digital best for?
Global enterprises needing multilingual data collection, search evaluation and annotation at telecom-grade scale and compliance.
Who should not use TELUS Digital?
Small or specialized expert-data programs, where a dedicated expert network is usually the sharper tool.
Sources
- TELUS Digital — Wikipedia (accessed Nov 2026)
- TELUS Digital AI Community profile — Thriveth (updated Aug 2026)
Facts on this page were drawn from the public sources above, checked November 2026. If you spot an error, tell us at the corrections address in the footer — we fix sourced errors and note the change.
Profile last updated: November 8, 2026 · How we write profiles · Corrections: contact@bestdataannotation.com