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Welcome to AIDA Labs
AIDA Labs is Canadian-owned, Canadian-built and Canadian-hosted. We build SaaS and bespoke solutions on free, public, open-source software, so we can deliver advanced systems for a fraction of what platforms like Salesforce charge per seat, and we host them on our own secure server in Quebec, under Law 25, with backups in Toronto.
AIDA stands for Artificial Intelligence Data Analysis. We use AI sparingly, and we build AI products that minimize and eliminate risk: low-cost tools that are quick to build because AI helps build them, each with strict guardrails, controls and processes designed to eliminate the risk of a rogue agent damaging or destroying production data or infrastructure.
See it working
Four ways to work with AIDA Labs, all running today. Hover, tap or tab to each one. See all our products ›
Proudly Canadian, Practically Priced
Our production server is in OVHcloud's data centre in Beauharnois, Quebec, run by its Canadian company, Hébergement OVH Inc. Backups and data syncs go to our second site in Toronto. Your data is stored in those two places only.
Today, visits to our sites pass through Cloudflare for protection and speed. Cloudflare does not store your data, and we are moving to a direct connection so that traffic stays in Canada as well.
Quebec's Law 25 sets strict rules for personal information: a person responsible for privacy, privacy impact assessments before data leaves Quebec, reporting of privacy incidents, and clear consent.
We design for it from the start: only the data the job needs, access by role, read-only dashboards, and every change made by a person and logged.
The US CLOUD Act lets US authorities require US-based providers to hand over data they control, wherever it is stored. The company that runs our Quebec server is Canadian and part of a French group, not a US provider.
Platforms such as Salesforce charge for every user, every month, so the bill grows with your team. We build on free, public, open-source software instead: PostgreSQL, PocketBase, nginx and Linux.
You pay for the solution we build and for hosting it, not for each person who uses it. Adding users does not add licence fees.
AI speeds up how we build, so one person can deliver what used to take a team, and the savings are passed on.
As a service: use our products, configured for you and hosted by us in Canada.
Bespoke: we build exactly what you need and you own it: the code, the database design and the documents.
Everything uses open, standard formats (PostgreSQL, CSV and JSON), and our designs are built to move to Azure, Databricks or Salesforce if you choose to later.
How we use AI, and where we don't
Our AI-enhanced portals are designed to use three kinds of intelligence strategically, so each one strengthens the others and covers their weaknesses:
- Mechanical does the heavy, repeatable work: collecting, cleaning and scoring every job or candidate with the same versioned rules, every time. It never gets tired and never guesses.
- AI is used sparingly, where reading and explaining language helps: summarizing, drafting and explaining a score. It never decides on its own.
- People review the results before a client sees them, and make the final call.
Why no AI or agent can reach our architecture: AI writes code and commands, but a person reads and runs every one. AI sessions have no access to the databases, servers, containers or schedulers, deleting is off by default, and the databases sit behind an outbound-only tunnel and a service-token gate the AI never sees. Human intervention is the barrier, by design.
No AI runs inside it. Every number comes from plain, versioned SQL functions on your data, so results are deterministic, repeatable and auditable. We use AI only to accelerate its design, build and testing, which lets one experienced person deliver what usually takes a team, and keeps your cost down.
That applies to the Intelligence Hub, Database Analytics and Insights, Project Blueprints, Project Boards and every custom database we build. AI helps us design, write, test and document them. Once built, they run on PostgreSQL, PocketBase, nginx and Linux, with no model in the loop.
What that means in practice
Guardrails we already use
These run today in AIDA's own systems, and every one is a pattern we bring to client work.
Our founder
Mike MacLeod
Mike has spent more than 15 years leading technology programs as a project manager, business analyst and solution architect, most of it inside banks and other regulated businesses. At Tier1 Financial Solutions (2018 to 2024) he delivered financial-services CRM programs and spent two years delivering Anti-Money Laundering software and analytics on the Alessa platform, running up to five compliance projects at once. Before that he was a solution architect at MASS Engines, and most recently he led delivery as a Senior Project Manager at HSS Business Solutions.
His work includes a $3.1 million, 18-month CRM rollout for Scotia Global Banking and Markets, and taking over Barclays' flagship engagement and moving it from red to green within weeks, with reporting and an issue-management system he built himself.
In 2026 he built AIDA on his own, from the ground up, using AI: a job-search and recruiting platform with its own database, scoring engine, workflow automation and secure client portal, running on free and open-source software for about $15 a month. He wrote the guardrails its AI works under, and they are the basis of how AIDA builds for clients.
He then built the AIDA Labs product suite: project portals with installable apps, a live AML Intelligence Hub with five dashboards and 50 KPIs, Executive Database Analytics, SaaS Project Management with Project Plans and Blueprints, and the data model for Project Boards.
A proud Canadian, Mike designed the whole architecture to keep data in Canada. It is hosted on a secure server in Quebec under Law 25, with backups and syncs at a second site in Toronto, and runs on free and open-source software rather than US-owned platforms.
Credentials
- Project Management Professional (PMP), 2026
- Salesforce Certified Administrator, 2012
- Salesforce Certified Platform Developer I, 2012
- B.Sc., Dalhousie University