Bell Canada is accelerating its move to sovereign AI solutions with the announcement of a partnership with Montreal-based Coveo.

The partnership will see Bell integrate Coveo’s AI-Relevance Platform with Bell AI Fabric, a full-stack AI offering that works with the company’s network, data centre infrastructure and cloud capabilities. Companies and federal and provincial governments can then deliver digital services more efficiently to Canadians. 

Bell’s technology services division Ateko will assist companies and governments in integrating these offerings into their operations. It will employ Coveo’s solution to overcome a persistent problem in rolling out secure AI-driven digital services: tapping into siloed and legacy systems holding critical data needed by AI systems.

“Coveo is one of the top technology companies in Canada, and Ateko is a top service integrator,” said Guillaume Bazinet, CEO of Ateko in an interview with TechNX. “One of the missing links in accelerating AI adoption in the private and public sectors is proper data integration across multiple platforms.”

Coveo provides AI-Relevance solutions to deliver advanced AI-search and generative experiences that maximize business outcomes customer service, and workplace and website experiences.

Solving legacy data issues

Bazinet said the challenge is to connect these systems without having to engage in a multi-year modernization project to bring them up-to-date. Doing so would slow efforts to have AI-powered services bring improvements to call centres, or deploying digital assistants to improve workflows and customer service.

“Coveo is what’s going to allow us to quickly get access to data and make sure that AI actually works with relevant data,” Bazinet added. 

Ateko’s role is to use Coveo to help companies and government agencies roll out AI-enabled automated cloud-based services. Bell formed Ateko when it unified several technology services providers: FX Innovation, CloudKettle and HGC Technologies. 

“What we do day in and day out is enterprise workflow automation, infrastructure and app modernization and governance,” Bazinet said. “This is a natural continuity to that. We are not starting to do something we weren’t doing in the past.”

The sovereignty push

The announcement also lines up with push by federal and provincial governments to reduce Canada’s reliance on foreign cloud services and AI technologies, Bazinet said. 

Sovereignty is also ensuring Canadian’s data stays in Canada.

“Our definition of sovereignty is not only data residency,” Bazinet added. “It’s full tech stack operations owned and operated by a Canadian entity, plus legal agreements owned by Canadians.”

“Canada has a responsibility and opportunity to lead in sovereign AI,” said John Watson, group president, business markets, AI and Ateko with Bell in a release accompanying the announcement. “Through our strategic partnership with Coveo, we are strengthening a made-in-Canada AI ecosystem that combines our secure national infrastructure and Bell AI Fabric with Coveo's world-class, internationally recognized AI-Relevance platform.

"As partners, we will help governments and enterprises modernize mission-critical services while ensuring Canadian data and AI computing remains secure, governed and under Canadian control."