CNS TECHNOLOGY
What Technology Does CNS Logistics Use for Moving in Montreal?
CNS Logistics is a Montreal moving company, holder of permit NIR R-160041-1 from the Commission des transports du Québec, that builds its own technology instead of buying it. Four systems: an instant online calculator priced by the same engine that bills the rate card; a bilingual AI website assistant powered by Claude (Anthropic), available around the clock; Rosalie, an AI telephone receptionist in development; and video-documented quoting, also in development. The company's 12 trucks are GPS-tracked, with positions updated every 30 seconds.
Last updated: August 20, 2026
12
GPS-tracked trucks
30
seconds between GPS position updates
300+
automated tests on the pricing engine
24/7
website assistant availability
How Does the Instant Calculator Price a Move?
The CNS Logistics instant calculator returns an itemized moving estimate in about 60 seconds, with no contact information required first. It prices crew and labour hours, transport hours, the distance fee, GST and QST, and the total. The price it returns is what the published rate card bills, on the same engine, on ten of fourteen long-distance route pages. It is an estimate, not a contract: the final price follows the details you provide and the hours actually worked, at the rate shown for your date.
Addresses
Where Are You Moving?
Open the calculator on its own page
There is no callback step and no contact form gate: choose an origin, a destination and a home size, and the itemized estimate is on screen in about 60 seconds. The calculator quotes long-distance corridors online, not only local moves, and it breaks the price into the same line items the invoice uses: crew and labour hours, transport hours, distance fee, GST and QST, total.
Same engine means the estimate and the invoice cannot disagree: the rate card, the online estimate and the final bill come from one rules system. Today, an estimate is only as accurate as the information it is built on: that is exactly the problem video-documented quoting is being built to close.
What Can the Website AI Assistant Do?
The CNS Logistics website assistant was built in-house at CNS, not bought from a vendor. It is powered by Claude (Anthropic), switches between English and French, and is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It gives an instant price estimate and answers questions about a move. It is bound by the same published prices as every other CNS channel: it may explain them, it may never negotiate them.
It is there for the questions people have before they book: what drives the price of a move, what the estimate includes, how the process works. It answers at 2 a.m. as readily as at 2 p.m., in English or French, and it was built inside CNS by the team that runs the company, not licensed from a chatbot vendor.
The pricing rule is strict by design. The assistant reads the same published prices as every other part of the company, and its job stops at explaining them. It cannot lower a price, cannot invent a rate and cannot negotiate, because the prices are not its to change.
You
CNS assistant
YouFR
CNS assistantFR
A sample exchange. The real assistant is one click away, day or night.
What Is Rosalie, the AI Receptionist in Development?
Rosalie is an AI telephone receptionist in development at CNS Logistics; she has not launched, and no customer has spoken to her yet. She is being built to answer in natural Quebec French or English on a real-time voice pipeline designed for interruption and real conversation, not scripted menus. The AI will handle the conversation, but every dollar figure will come from the company's deterministic pricing engine, the same rules system with 300+ automated tests that prices real Montreal moves.
Caller
a real call, built for interruption
AI conversation
natural Quebec French or English
Deterministic engine
every dollar figure from the engine, none from the AI
300+ automated testsLive calendar
a dispatcher's capacity rules
Booking or human handoff
pianos, commercial moves, anything sensitive
Three layers separate what Rosalie is being built to be from a chatbot with a voice. The first is the voice pipeline itself: real-time, built for interruption, so a caller can cut in, change their mind or ask something sideways, the way people actually talk on the phone. No scripted menu, no 'press 2'.
The second layer is the heart of the design: the AI never does the math. It will handle the conversation, and every dollar figure will come from the deterministic pricing engine that already prices real Montreal moves, a rules system covered by 300+ automated tests. The AI talks, the engine calculates: she is being built so that an arithmetic error is mechanically impossible, because the arithmetic never happens inside the AI.
The third layer is operations: she is being built to read the real booking calendar, apply the same capacity rules a human dispatcher applies, and hand the call to a human for anything complex: pianos, commercial moves, anything sensitive. And she is built to be honest about herself: asked whether she is an AI, she will say so.
Why build a phone receptionist at all? Because in this industry a missed call is a lost job: people book whoever answers first. Rosalie is being built inside a working moving company, on that company's own quoting rules, by the people who answer these calls today.
How Will Video-Documented Quoting Work?
Video-documented quoting is a system in development at CNS Logistics. The client will film their home through a guided capture, room by room, including access points, stairs and hallways. An AI vision system will build an itemized inventory of everything that moves; a CNS estimator will review it, and the client will confirm it. Every step will be sealed in a tamper-evident record of what was filmed, what was counted and what was agreed, so the quote rests on documented reality rather than on estimates.
Guided capture
room by room: access points, stairs, hallways
AI inventory
an itemized list of everything that moves
Estimator review
a human review, then the client's confirmation
Tamper-evident record
what was filmed, counted and agreed
The point of the tamper-evident record is symmetry: the client and CNS will hold the same proof of what was declared before the truck arrives. A quote built on a documented inventory is a quote neither side has to re-litigate from memory.
The goal, stated as a goal and not a promise: a fixed price that cannot change on moving day, and damage claims resolved quickly because the evidence exists before the move starts.
Why Does CNS Put Its Prices in Software?
CNS builds this technology because a number computed by an engine at published rates is easier to verify than a promise, and because the Quebec moving market is under active, documented attention from the consumer-protection regulator. In January 2025 the Office de la protection du consommateur launched a preventive surveillance program covering Quebec moving companies; results were published on June 27, 2025. Of 101 verifications, 89 companies received an avis de rappel, a notice reminding them of their legal obligations. The OPC states these notices are the first level of intervention and that the program was preventive, meant to make merchants aware of their obligations; they are not findings of illegality. The checks covered prohibited contract clauses, trust-account deposits and distance-contract rules.
101
verifications of Quebec moving companies
89
companies received an avis de rappel, the OPC's first level of intervention
165
complaints the prior year: moving, storage and delivery combined
332
information requests, the same combined category
In the prior year the OPC recorded 165 complaints and 332 information requests concerning moving, storage and delivery services combined, a category that bundles three service types. An estimate computed by a tested engine at the published rates, itemized to the tax line, is CNS's answer to that context.
Read the OPC's June 27, 2025 announcement of the surveillance program results
Frequently Asked Questions
What technology does CNS Logistics use for moving in Montreal?
Is the price from the CNS Logistics online calculator the price I actually pay?
Can I get an instant quote for a long-distance move from Montreal online?
If I call CNS Logistics, will an AI answer the phone?
Can the CNS Logistics AI assistant negotiate a lower price?
What did the Office de la protection du consommateur find about Quebec moving companies in 2025?
How will video-documented quoting work at CNS Logistics?
See the Price Before Anyone Calls You
The calculator is live, itemized at the published rates, line by line. About 60 seconds, no contact information required first.
Try the instant calculator