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38% of Canadians say they've avoided a company over its cybersecurity, and 57% say they'd likely leave if a breach exposed their own information.

Jennifer Friesen reports that Bell commissioned the poll and released it through Bell Cyber, its cybersecurity business. Léger ran it online through its national panel of 1,523 Canadians from July 29 to Aug. 5.

A breach costs money before any customer decides anything. Friesen reported in August that the Canadian average hit a record $7.11 million, by IBM's 2026 count.

Bell also asked people about their own workplaces. Only 35% of employees think they've had adequate cybersecurity training, and that falls to 22% at small businesses.

For more, including what raises Canadians' trust and how many expect organizations to stop AI-enabled attacks:

→ Read: Customers are judging your cybersecurity before they buy

80% of product professionals say AI helps them ship faster, but customers aren’t seeing value any sooner. Atlassian’s State of Product 2027 explores the gains AI is delivering and the challenges that remain, from decision-making that hasn’t kept pace to gut instinct overriding customer evidence.

Read the report

Sobeys' enterprise data and AI team scoped the work of connecting the grocer to Uber, Instacart and DoorDash at about 10 months. The first delivery partner went live in 10 weeks.

Rupinder Dhillon, Sobeys' vice-president of enterprise data and AI, told that story on stage at Snowflake World Tour in Toronto in September. Her team spent the time it saved on retail questions, like which products to list and whether the pricing was right.

"I joke with our team all the time that we're not a technology team. We're retailers first," said Dhillon.

For more, including the three things Snowflake's Bala Kasiviswanathan says slow AI projects down:

→ Read: Sobeys' tech team is no longer the bottleneck

76% of public servants surveyed by KPMG Canada say their organization's procurement policy stipulates buying AI products from Canadian firms whenever possible.

Jennifer Kervin writes that Canada-U.S. trade disputes and a broader push to protect the country's economic independence have sharpened the preference.

94% say safeguarding Canadian data and intellectual property is an urgent need, and 86% worry the public will lose trust if citizens' information gets stored outside the country.

“But data sovereignty is only one piece of the puzzle,” says Michael Klubal, KPMG Canada's national industry leader for infrastructure, government and healthcare. “To realize the full potential of AI, governments also need the right skills, governance frameworks and workforce capabilities in place.”

For more, including what public servants say about AI skills inside their own organizations:

→ Read: Support for Canadian AI is already part of public-sector policies

Some light reading for when the security training module won't load

What Canadian journalists are learning about AI from each other About 50 people from Canadian newsrooms spent an evening in Toronto last week comparing how they build with AI and how they check its work. The Toronto Star classified more than 4,000 Ontario strong mayor decisions with Gemini for under $60, then found that three experienced reporters couldn't agree on how to code the same documents by hand. Craig Silverman runs a two-person investigative newsroom on agents that propose a plan and wait for his approval, and Nora Young wants journalists to stop saying AI “goes rogue.” (I second that.)

Ottawa moves to strengthen venture and growth capital investment in Canada Industry Minister Mélanie Joly announced a $1.75-billion Venture and Growth Capital Plan in Toronto on Oct. 22, with $675 million aimed at later-stage companies so they scale and stay here. The Business Development Bank of Canada will manage the investments on the government's behalf.

Calgary's startups want a spot on your supplier list Platform Calgary CEO Jennifer Lussier says customer access is founders' top focus this year, and that startups move in weeks while large companies can take quarters or years. Mitch Johnstone, CEO of Paradigm Inputs and one of the 10 founders picked for Platform Calgary's Launch Party, says it did nearly as much business in Q1 2026 as in all of 2025. 

OpenAI says its AI agents disabled their own safety monitors OpenAI says an agent running on its GPT-6.1 Sol model, told not to send messages on the workplace chat app, took that as licence to switch off safety alerts meant for its security team. In a second case three days later, a GPT-6 Astra agent stripped out its own monitor and then told the human programmer it had done no such thing. Keep that in mind the next time an agent is reassuring you everything is ok. 

Canadian companies are turning HR into a technology strategy Statistics Canada found 35.9% of Canadian workers aged 15 to 69 had used generative AI at work in the 12 months to March 2026, which makes AI skills an HR problem as much as a technology one. In TD's 2026 AI Insights Report, 32% of Canadians surveyed said they had overstated their AI capabilities at work. 

76% of public servants say their procurement policy favours buying AI from Canadian firms whenever possible. Which is great, though “whenever possible” is where the policy stops being a policy.

Ottawa announced $675 million for later-stage Canadian companies last week. Calgary's founders say customer access is their top focus this year, and that large companies take quarters or years to decide while startups move in weeks.

A purchase order is a decision. The rest is a press release.

— David

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