Why work with an AI data collection service?

Working with an AI data collection service offers significant advantages, particularly for global and disruptive brands seeking to leverage artificial intelligence for digital transformation and to enhance their digital customer experience. Such services provide comprehensive solutions, including data annotation, content moderation, and intelligent automation, tailored to meet the evolving needs of businesses in the fast-paced world of technology. By partnering with a service that is deeply invested in next-gen digital solutions, companies can ensure the accuracy and relevance of the data feeding their AI models, leading to better business outcomes, increased efficiency, and significant cost savings.

Why consider alternatives to Telus International?

Choosing the right AI data partner is crucial for the success of your projects, given that data stands as a cornerstone in the realm of artificial intelligence, driving both innovation and efficiency. In seeking a partner that aligns with the needs of global and disruptive brands, it's essential to evaluate the offerings, such as data annotation, intelligent automation, and digital customer experience solutions, to ensure they contribute to better business outcomes and support digital transformation efforts effectively. While Telus International is recognized for its commitment to next-gen digital solutions and has a strong presence in providing services to a wide array of businesses, including disruptive brands, it's prudent to conduct a thorough assessment of any potential partner. This includes examining their digital strategy, corporate culture, and the extent to which they can offer custom solutions tailored to your specific needs. Exploring alternatives allows you to make an informed decision, ensuring that the chosen partner not only delivers on the promise of cost savings and efficiency but also seamlessly integrates with your team and business vision for the future.

Data Data Collection

Telus International Review & Alternatives

Cem Dilmegani

updated on Jul 2, 2025

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As AI-powered solutions become increasingly abundant, many businesses rely on AI data services to acquire the necessary data to fuel their AI projects, such as large language models (LLMs) or natural language processing (NLP) systems. Telus International is one such service that helps businesses with their AI data needs. Our analysis identified some drawbacks of working with Telus International.

This article evaluates Telus International based on customer and worker reviews and offers three alternatives, detailing their main features and pricing models.

Readers interested in Telus International alternatives fall under two categories; select yours to see information that is relevant to you:

Telus International’s workers: These are workers who wish to work within Telus’s crowd as participants.
Customers (i.e., buyers): These are businesses that are interested in Telus’s services but want to consider its alternatives.

Table 1. Telus International alternatives comparison (for workers)

Companies	Worker ratings (out of 5)*	Number of reviews*	Payment schedule**
Clickworker	4.4	2454	Weekly
Appen	1.3	257	Weekly
Telus International	1.7	88	Monthly
Amazon Mechanical Turk	2	57	Weekly

Notes

Workers can use the links in the table to reach the sign-up pages of each alternative.
The companies are ranked based on the number of reviews.
* Worker ratings data gathered from Trustpilot since it has mostly worker reviews.
** Data gathered from analyzing worker reviews. In some cases, workers reported payment delays.

Table 2. Telus International alternatives comparison (for customers)

Companies	User ratings out of 5 (Avg)*	Number of Reviews*	Mobile Application	ISO 27001 Certification	Code of Conduct
LXT**	4.1	68	✅	✅	✅
Appen	4.2	54	✅	✅	✅
Amazon Mechanical Turk	4	28	✖	N/A	✖
TELUS International	4.3	10	✖	✖	✖

Notes

* The data was gathered from B2B review platforms such as G2, Trustradius, and Capterra.
**Since LXT acquired Clickworker, their reviews were combined when calculating LXT’s scores.
The comparison is based on publicly available and verifiable data
The companies are ranked based on the number of reviews.

Telus International overview

Telus International claims to specialize in digital customer experience (CX), AI data solutions, and digital IT solutions for various brands. The company leverages a crowdsourcing model and claims to operate with a network of over 1 million workers.

Its offerings include:

Customer experience (CX) solutions: Claims to help businesses manage customer interactions across various channels, such as phone, email, chat, and social media.
AI data solutions: Claims to offer data collection, generation, and annotation services for AI and ML development.
Digital IT solutions: Claims to provide digital transformation solutions, including IT lifecycle management, intelligent automation, and data annotation services.

Pros and cons of Telus International (For potential buyers)

Now, let’s discuss the pros and cons of working with Telus International as a potential customer or buyer. The pros and cons are based on the analysis we did from customer reviews from B2B review platforms.

1. Additional services

Telus offers data annotation along with data collection, so customers do not have to look for a separate solution for their annotation needs.

2. Crowd size

The network size of Telus is relatively larger than that of its competitors, such as Amazon Mechanical Turk. However, it is smaller than other competitors such as LXT.

3. Data annotation service

Customers are satisfied with its data annotation service, but would like to see more efficiency and speed in the completion of the annotation task.

4. Regarding popular services

We did not find any reviews regarding its data collection service. This indicates that either data collection is not its primary focus, or it is not a popular service among its customers.

Detailed alternatives comparison (For customers)

1. LXT

LXT, the parent company of Clickworker, is a viable alternative to Telus International, as it offers a range of AI services and data solutions through its crowdsourcing platform. The company distributes its projects to its global network of over 4.5 million workers.

Here is a list of LXT’s data solutions:

Datasets collected and generated by humans
Image & video datasets in different formats and specifications.
Audio and speech datasets in multiple languages and dialects.
Text datasets
Data annotation services
Research/survey data collection
Reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) services for AI development

2. Appen

Appen is another alternative to Telus and a popular name in the AI data service space. Its offerings include:

Data collection & generation of different data types (image, video, text, audio, speech)
Data annotation
Data validation

3. Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk)

Amazon Mechanical Turk, or MTurk, is also a popular alternative for Telus International, offering AI services through a marketplace and a crowdsourcing model.

Here is a list of their offerings: