Microsoft France Drives AI Skills Push across Voluntary Sector, Public Employment, and Startup Ecosystem
PARIS – Microsoft France is expanding its artificial intelligence initiatives to equip professionals in the voluntary sector with AI tools, upskill job seekers, and accelerate the development of French AI startups. The company announced several key programs and deployments at a recent press briefing, demonstrating a broad commitment to fostering AI adoption and skills across the French landscape.
A new program, IAGenGo, a variation of the GenIAles model, is being launched in partnership with Simplon, specifically for professionals working in the voluntary sector.Simultaneously, France Work, in collaboration with Microsoft and Kokoroe, is promoting its AI Calendar - an online course designed to introduce AI to job seekers. Launched in January, the AI Calendar has already reached 7 million job seekers and logged 700,000 visits, according to Sylvain Poirier, Director of the AI Department within the public employment agency.
Further bolstering AI literacy, Mednum, a cooperative society focused on digital inclusion, is deploying “AI Cafés” nationwide and offering introductory AI workshops. Supported by the National Agency for Territorial Cohesion (ANCT) and Microsoft, 800 digital mediators have been trained to assist the public. Mednum plans to host an AI Week in spring 2026, aiming to reach 50,000 people through 1,500 events.
Microsoft’s efforts also extend to supporting established companies and the startup ecosystem. In 2024, Danone granted 50,000 of its 90,000 employees access to Microsoft 365 Copilot and established an AI Academy with Microsoft, as stated by Eugenia Fornieri macchi, SVP Global Talent, Learning and Executives’Management, Danone. TotalEnergies has deployed 30,000 Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses to its workforce.
Through its Microsoft GenAI Studio program at Station F Paris, Microsoft aims to support 2,500 French startups by 2027, with over 1,000 already participating. The program will launch its third edition in January 2026, onboarding 15 new startups for a four-month acceleration program.
HRTech startup Blify, co-founded by Clement lhommeau (ex-360Learning), Tristan Vié (ex-JobTeaser), and Minh Tu Hua (ex-Alan), is a recent graduate of the Microsoft GenAI Studio’s second promotion. Blify is developing multi-agent AI for a managerial training platform integrated with popular communication tools like Slack, Teams, and WhatsApp. The company was also a finalist in the Unleash Startup Award 2025.
