OpenAI’s seduction operation in France

” Welcome ! » Few companies have the honor of seeing their establishment in France praised by a tweet from the President of the Republic. Emmanuel Macron's message was published while some of the 300 guests at the inauguration party organized by OpenAI, Thursday, November 14, for the opening of its office in Paris, were still queuing on the sidewalk. “Like in front of a nightclub”laughed Clara Chappaz, the Secretary of State responsible for artificial intelligence (AI) and digital technology. “When you want to be big, you welcome the big ones”she then explained on stage, justifying the goodwill towards the American creator of the conversational robot ChatGPT by France's ambition to be a country at the forefront of AI.

OpenAI plans to integrate with “the ecosystem” local, assured Sarah Friar, its financial director, who arrived in May from the neighborhood social network NextDoor, and Julie Lavet, a French woman poached from Apple in May to be responsible for relations with European member states and partnerships at OpenAI. On stage, French tech figures were invited, including Stanislas Polu, who worked for OpenAI before founding his AI start-up, Dust.

Better penetrate the business market

Opening an office in foreign countries is a necessary part of the history of fast-growing American tech companies like OpenAI. Born in 2015 as a non-profit research team, the project has become, since the launch of ChatGPT at the end of 2022, a multinational that is being structured. It has 1,700 employees, including 650 AI researchers. The Paris office will be the ninth in the world, all of which have opened since January. But, despite this rapid expansion, “the company culture remains close to that of a research laboratory”assures Olivier Godement, the manager of the business services platform. The latter is, with Romain Huet, responsible for relations with developers, one of the two French OpenAI based in San Francisco who came to Paris to present its products to the media and partners.

The establishment in Paris aims in particular to better penetrate the French business market. In fact, the latter are not “only one in four” to have significantly deployed AI tools, deplored M^me Chappaz by presenting his roadmap. Among the obstacles: the cost of technology, the persistence of errors or concerns about data security. To help start-ups better understand and use its tools, OpenAI organized an event on Tuesday at the Station F incubator, led by Roxanne Varza, present Thursday evening, and founded by Xavier Niel, founder of Free and shareholder at individual title of Monde. A meeting was also planned with leaders of large companies on Friday. OpenAI says it already has major clients in France using its AI assistants, such as Sanofi, to accelerate the recruitment process for clinical trial patients, or Orange, to help its customer service or agents consult internal documentation.

You have 40.81% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.