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Welcome to AIDA Labs
Watch · 1 minuteAIDA Labs in one minute
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.
Our products
Pick one, then open its page.
Enterprise Portals
Governed portals for larger organisations, built from our tools: a Project Portal for the plan, sprints and releases, Plans and Blueprints so everyone knows where they are, and Live Reporting Dashboards on your own data. Every enterprise portal comes with the Database Control Panel, so you always know what your data holds and whether every feed arrived. Hosted by us in Canada or on your own servers. No AI inside.
AI-Enhanced Portals
Two portals running today, for job seekers and for recruiters. People, mechanical scoring and a minimal amount of AI, each designed to cover the others' weaknesses: rules do the scoring, AI explains, and a person reviews. No AI or agent can reach our architecture, because a person runs every command.
Small Business Portals
The online home of a business that books time with its clients: schedule, clients, leads, packages and pricing, forms, documents and messages, with an app your clients use on their phones. Two editions: AIDA Studio for any business, AIDA Coach for personal trainers. Built from your own objects, every permission tested before launch. Hosted in Canada. No AI inside.
Professional Services
Everything around the portals: set-up, customization to how you work, database design and administration, ongoing admin and support, and bespoke builds from the ground up. Bespoke work can be purely mechanical, or use strategic, effective AI enhancements designed to use as few AI tokens as possible.
Live Reporting Dashboards (hub.aidalabs.ca): the front end of an analytics system built from our tools: data collectors, a database built for your data, roles and permissions, and dashboards for every role. The sample runs five dashboards and 50 KPIs, every number traceable to its records.
Project Portal (portal.aidalabs.ca): SaaS project management, one place for a whole program: the plan, sprints, releases and live data, installable as an app on any phone, tablet or computer, and available offline.
Plans and Blueprints (projects.aidalabs.ca, blueprint.aidalabs.ca): tools for any project: the schedule, milestones, critical path and resourcing, and the read-only library of every deliverable, decision and sign-off.
Standard in every enterprise portal: the Database Control Panel (database.aidalabs.ca): what the database holds, whether every feed arrived and what needs tuning, every number opening its records.
For job seekers (aida-job-search.ca): real, open jobs, scored against the person's experience by rules, explained in plain language, and reviewed by a person before anything is sent.
For recruiters (recruiter.aida-job-search.ca): every candidate scored mechanically against the job, the score explained with a minimal amount of AI, and reviewed by a person.
Why three parts. People bring judgement, the mechanical scoring is consistent and checkable, and AI is used only where it adds something. Each one covers the weaknesses of the other two.
Why no AI can reach our systems. AI never runs commands. A person reads, approves and runs every change, so no AI or agent can reach the database, the servers or the architecture.
For any small business that books time with clients: clinics, studios, salons, tutors, coaches and consultants. The schedule, clients, leads, packages and pricing, forms, documents and messages in one portal, and an app for each client on their phone.
Two editions. AIDA Studio for any business; AIDA Coach for personal trainers, with programs, workouts and check-ins. Add Health and Wellness, body measurements, bilingual screens and more as you need them.
Built from your own objects. We describe what your business tracks once, and the portal's database, security rules and screens are built from it. Every permission is tested automatically before launch.
The sample: Larkspur Physio & Wellness, a fictional clinic, at studio.aidalabs.ca.
The portals are the products; Professional Services is everything we do to them.
Set-up: your portal configured with minimal, cost-effective changes, so you are running quickly and pay only for what you change.
Customization: your own objects, fields, record types, screens, branding and add-ons.
Admin and support: ongoing administration of the portal and its database, users and permissions, backups and updates.
Bespoke: a solution designed and built from the ground up around your data and your process.
Databases: database design, set-up and administration, on PostgreSQL, PocketBase or SQL Server, with the controls of an enterprise CRM added as you need them: record types, profiles and permission sets, sharing rules, consent and audit, automated permission tests.
Mechanical or AI-enhanced: many problems are best solved with rules and a well-designed database alone. Where AI adds real value, we use it strategically, with every call designed to use as few tokens as possible. A person stays in control of every change.
See them live
One portal from each class, all running today. Hover, tap or tab to each one, then open it.
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 every tool in our toolkit 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 toolkit: the Project Portal with an installable app, Plans and Blueprints, Live Reporting Dashboards with five dashboards and 50 KPIs, the Database Control Panel, data collectors, the AI Airlock, and the Enterprise, AI-Enhanced and Small Business Portals built from them.
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