TELUS Digital Named a Leader in the 2026 NelsonHall NEAT Evaluation for AI Enablement Services
TELUS Digital recognized as a Leader in AI Enablement and AI Training, with capabilities in physical AI and robotics data cited as a key strength
VANCOUVER, BC, Aug. 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- TELUS Digital, a global technology service provider specializing in AI-powered digital customer experiences (CX) and future-focused digital transformations, has been named a Leader in the 2026 NelsonHall NEAT Evaluation for AI Enablement Services in both the Overall and AI Training market segments. This is the analyst firm's highest designated ranking, reflecting TELUS Digital's ability to deliver immediate benefit to enterprises building and training AI models, while positioning them for the growing data demands of physical AI, robotics and autonomous systems.
"The next exciting stage of AI training has moved to support autonomous vehicles, physical AI, embodied AI, and AGI," said Ivan Kotzev, Lead CX Analyst, NelsonHall. "TELUS Digital is ready for this shift with its consistently developed capabilities across specialized data collection and annotation for computer vision and robotics AI, with real-world use cases and investments in the sovereign AI factory in Canada."
In the Overall category, the NelsonHall NEAT evaluation highlighted TELUS Digital's capabilities, including its:
- End-to-end AI enablement offering, spanning data collection, annotation and validation through to AI training and AI operationalization, backed by roughly 80,000 employees across 35 countries.
- Broad enterprise client base, with about 77 AI enablement clients spanning foundation model builders, telecoms, consumer electronics and robotics companies, automotive, travel, fintech and healthcare.
- Proprietary quality control IP, including an LLM-as-a-judge system that combines scoring from multiple evaluator models to reduce single-model bias.
- Agentic AI development, including reinforcement learning environments that train and evaluate models on long-horizon workflows using reasoning traces and multistep planning.
TELUS Digital named a Leader in AI training data and annotation services
Alongside the Overall designation, NelsonHall separately named TELUS Digital a Leader in AI Training, the segment assessing vendors on data annotation, labeling and the specialized work of preparing data for model training. The report pointed to the scale and depth of TELUS Digital's training infrastructure, including its capacity to support emerging demand in physical AI and robotics.
In the AI Training category, NelsonHall cited TELUS Digital's:
- Scaled, specialized training community, with roughly 1 million registered users and 115,000 active members across about 104 countries, performing AI training tasks in close to 100 languages, including around 50,000 advanced degree holders in STEM, healthcare, law and finance.
- Established computer vision and ADAS experience, with multiple deployments in data collection and annotation for advanced driver assistance systems.
- Growing robotics and embodied AI capabilities, including real-world pre- and post-training data collection and photorealistic digital twins used to generate synthetic ground truth data.
- Access to Canadian sovereign AI infrastructure, including compute capacity through TELUS' Sovereign AI Factory in Rimouski, Quebec.
TELUS Digital's physical AI and robotics data capabilities recognized as a growth driver
The NelsonHall report points to TELUS Digital's work across frontier model data training as a key differentiator, extending its Ground Truth Studio platform into robotics workflows such as 3D trajectory annotation and manipulation analysis for consumer electronics, manufacturing and warehousing clients. This builds on TELUS Digital's existing work with leading autonomous vehicle programs, applying that same production-grade rigor to robotics and world models, including egocentric and teleoperation data collection across single- and dual-arm systems, dexterous hands and humanoid interactions. Its data pipelines cover physics-aware annotation across sensor types, including lidar, RGB, depth and force-torque, along with the digital twin and simulation work needed to close the gap between lab testing and real-world deployment.
"This recognition reflects the breadth of what we've built, from the quality systems behind our annotation and training work to the reasoning and planning capabilities we're developing for agentic AI," said Amith Nair, Global Vice President & General Manager, AI & Data, TELUS Digital. "At the same time, we're seeing real momentum in physical and embodied applications, systems that operate on factory floors, in warehouses and alongside people in the real world. That shift changes what training data needs to be. It takes real-world context and domain expertise, whether that's an engineer validating robotics sensor data or a specialist reviewing manipulation and grasping tasks. This designation tells us we're building the right foundation across both where AI is today and where we believe it's headed next."
The 2026 NelsonHall NEAT Evaluation for AI Enablement analyzed the performance of 11 vendors offering AI and data training services and evaluated them on "ability to deliver immediate benefit" and "ability to meet client future requirements." Participating vendors were then identified as: Leaders (the highest designation), High Achievers, Innovators or Major Players.
For more information on TELUS Digital's AI data training services and capabilities, visit: telusdigital.com/solutions/data-for-ai-training
Frequently asked questions
- What should enterprises look for when evaluating an AI training data vendor like TELUS Digital?
Enterprises should look for vendors that combine current delivery capability with a clear path to future needs, including experience in AI enablement and specific strength in AI training. NelsonHall's 2026 NEAT Evaluation for AI Enablement Services assesses vendors on both dimensions, and TELUS Digital's Leader status in Overall AI Enablement and AI Training reflects strong performance across data annotation, model training, and support for emerging use cases like physical AI, robotics and agentic systems. - What services does TELUS Digital provide under AI enablement, and how can enterprises confirm full coverage of the AI lifecycle?
AI enablement spans data collection, annotation and labeling, data validation, AI training such as fine-tuning and reinforcement learning from human feedback, and AI operationalization, including model development and deployment support. TELUS Digital supports each stage of this lifecycle, which matters since gaps between stages often create rework and quality issues downstream. - What does TELUS Digital offer enterprises that are training generative AI or frontier models?
TELUS Digital delivers post-training data built specifically for agentic and reasoning-heavy use cases, including verified reasoning traces, chain-of-thought annotations and multi-step planning data. This work draws on a global network of specialized experts, including PhDs, clinicians and software architects, and reinforcement learning environments designed to train models to plan, use tools and self-correct. - What does TELUS Digital provide for enterprises that are sourcing data for physical AI or robotics?
TELUS Digital delivers data pipelines with coverage across the full sensor spectrum, including RGB-D, lidar, radar, IMU and tactile sensors, along with egocentric and teleoperation data collection and physics-aware annotation through its Ground Truth Studio and Fine-Tune Studio platforms. This includes sim-to-real transfer support through digital twins and high-fidelity simulation data, a key capability since that's often where physical AI systems fail after leaving the lab. - Why does domain expertise matter when sourcing AI training data, and how does TELUS Digital aim to ensure it?
Complex, high-stakes use cases, including autonomous vehicles, robotics and enterprise applications, need annotators with real subject-matter depth rather than general-purpose labeling. TELUS Digital's contributor community spans more than 20 verified domains, including STEM, law, healthcare and finance, with experts matched to tasks based on verified credentials.
- What quality assurance standards does TELUS Digital apply to AI training data at scale?
Quality is built into every stage of the pipeline rather than applied as a final check. For safety-critical applications, TELUS Digital applies red teaming, adversarial testing and multilayer quality assurance, including automated checks paired with expert human review and adjudication protocols aligned to regulatory and safety certification standards. - How does TELUS Digital help clients beyond AI enablement?
In addition to helping clients with AI enablement, such as data collection, annotation and model evaluation, TELUS Digital also develops custom AI applications and agents, including foundational work such as AI strategy, cloud transformation and data engineering. The company offers AI infrastructure and operations management, with compute available through TELUS' Sovereign AI Factory, as well as cloud managed services for clients who host AI at their hyperscaler of choice. TELUS Digital also protects GenAI applications through automated red teaming and custom adversarial datasets. Its Fuel iX platform gives clients standardized AI capabilities and custom application development tools to manage, monitor and maintain GenAI across the enterprise.
About TELUS Digital
TELUS Digital crafts unique and enduring experiences for customers and employees, and creates future-focused digital transformations that deliver value for our clients. We are the brand behind the brands. Our global team members are both passionate ambassadors of our clients' products and services, and technology experts resolute in our pursuit to elevate their end customer journeys, solve business challenges, mitigate risks, and drive continuous innovation. Our portfolio of end-to-end, integrated capabilities includes customer experience management, digital solutions, such as cloud solutions, AI-fueled automation, front-end digital design and consulting services, AI & data solutions, including computer vision, and trust, safety and security services. Fuel iXTM is TELUS Digital's proprietary platform and suite of products for clients to manage, monitor, and maintain generative AI across the enterprise, offering both standardized AI capabilities and custom application development tools for creating tailored enterprise solutions.
Powered by purpose, TELUS Digital leverages technology, human ingenuity and compassion to serve customers and create inclusive, thriving communities in the regions where we operate around the world. Guided by our Humanity-in-the-Loop principles, we take a responsible approach to the transformational technologies we develop and deploy by proactively considering and addressing the broader impacts of our work. Learn more at: telusdigital.com
About NelsonHall
NelsonHall is the leading global analyst firm dedicated to helping organizations understand the 'art of the possible' in digital operations transformation. With analysts in the U.S., Europe, and India, NelsonHall provides buy-side organizations with detailed, critical information on markets and vendors (including NEAT assessments) that helps them make fast and highly informed sourcing decisions. And for vendors, NelsonHall provides deep knowledge of market dynamics and user requirements to help them hone their go-to-market strategies. NelsonHall's analysis is based on rigorous, primary research, and is widely respected for the quality and depth of its insight.
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