FACC Texas Supports Bpifrance’s AI Business Mission to Silicon Valley

Artificial intelligence is no longer optional — it’s a strategic lever. To help French companies move from experimentation to tangible results, Bpifrance partnered with FACC Texas, in collaboration with FACC California (San Francisco–Los Angeles), to curate a high-impact program of meetings, site visits, and networking opportunities across the Bay Area’s vibrant AI ecosystem. Alongside the Dreamforce convention, the FACC Texas team worked with Bpifrance’s Information Services, Customer Success, and Export leadership to design and deliver an immersive learning and business experience for ten French companies from sectors such as insurance, travel, chemicals, pharma, and digital transformation.

A shared mission: turning AI ambition into operational impact.
The program was built to help participants understand how to integrate AI effectively into their operations, identify concrete innovation levers, and cultivate a lasting competitive edge. It combined exposure to U.S. best practices, meetings with global technology leaders, and hands-on sessions centered on real business challenges.

The journey began in Paris, where participants joined a preparation session led by Bpifrance’s Export Team as part of the program’s learning journey. FACC Texas secured two renowned speakers for this session: Luc Julia, inventor of Siri and now Chief Scientific Officer at Renault, who shared his vision of what AI can — and cannot — do today; and Florent Pachet, former Director of AI at Spotify and now entrepreneur, who offered insights from the creative industry, illustrating how AI drives innovation and reinvents business models. This session equipped participants with the intellectual framework and mindset to maximize their learning and impact once in the U.S.

In San Francisco, the delegation kicked off its week at the Residence of France, welcomed by Consul General Florian Cardinaux. Executives from leading Bay Area companies such as Meta, AMD, Adobe, OpenAI, and Cisco joined the networking breakfast, covered by Le Figaro and AFP. The event was more than ceremonial — it was a strategic opportunity to establish first connections and frame the mission’s objective: building bridges between French innovation and the U.S. AI ecosystem through concrete dialogue and collaboration.

During the program, participants met with Romain Huet, Head of Developer Experience at OpenAI, who offered a deep dive into how AI is transforming not only productivity but the very structure of work. He emphasized that the next major leap will come from companies capable of integrating an understanding of the physical world into AI systems — those that bridge data and real-world interactions will accelerate the fastest.
Romain also underlined the importance of fostering a culture of sharing and internal education to fully leverage AI’s potential. Too often, teams use tools like ChatGPT only for surface tasks, when they can be powerful drivers of creativity, efficiency, and product development. His message was clear: mastering AI starts with spreading knowledge internally and empowering teams to experiment and learn collectively.

Innovation in action took center stage at Plug and Play, one of Silicon Valley’s most successful accelerators — and the early investor behind global unicorns such as PayPal, Dropbox, and Honey. Participants explored how Plug and Play helps startups scale through its corporate innovation model.
Davis Auksmuksts, Program Director at Plug and Play, walked the group through the accelerator’s history, its most emblematic success stories, and how it helps seed-stage startups grow. He also highlighted the program’s remarkable selectivity — a ratio close to one in a thousand — illustrating how Plug and Play’s curated ecosystem ensures quality, relevance, and impact for both startups and corporate partners.

The morning continued with a Business Forum on “Transforming Operations with AI,” featuring Julia Martensen (Chief Innovation Officer, ServiceNow) and François Lopitaux (SVP Product Management, ThoughtSpot). Speakers discussed how large organizations can balance upskilling and reskilling to empower teams in an AI-driven environment, and how to transition from experimentation to large-scale transformation. Julia Martensen shared insights from ServiceNow’s latest research on how Gen Z perceives and uses AI, showing both optimism and awareness of its risks — from overreliance to cognitive decline (read the full white paper here).

The lively session concluded with a networking lunch attended by leaders and innovation executives from across the Bay Area, including representatives from Airbus Innovation Lab, EDF Innovation Lab, Capgemini, EPAM, Aera Technology, Sony Ventures, Salesforce, Meta, Nvidia, AI & Data, Scality, and Breedj.com. Their exchanges opened new perspectives on collaboration between startups, corporates, and investors in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.

The afternoon took the delegation to Google’s Mountain View campus, where a GenAI Cloud Architect and senior AI engineers shared how Gemini is helping organizations accelerate processes and decision-making. Each participant received tailored insights into how Google’s tools could address their company’s specific challenges. The day concluded at SAP, where the Global VP of R&D explained how the company has re-engineered its innovation model around AI to enhance its product suite’s impact.

To close on a futuristic note, the group even experienced their first autonomous ride in a Waymo — a thrilling preview of the future of mobility.

Beyond the visits, the mission reinforced one fundamental truth: AI transformation starts with data.
Companies must collect the right data, ensure its quality, and develop the capacity to process it effectively. This foundation enables better decisions, faster innovation, and measurable performance gains. The delegation returned to France with clearer ideas, a stronger sense of where to play and how to win, and actionable plans to cultivate their AI-driven strategic advantage.

“Bpifrance, Bpifrance.io, the Export Team, and the French-American Chamber of Commerce in the U.S. were the architects of this remarkable expedition. A huge thank-you for the flawless organization, inspiring meetings, and high-level exchanges AI will change the world… and this week in San Francisco gave us a striking glimpse of that future!”
— Lionel Chaine, Chief Information System Officer, Bpifrance

FACC Texas is proud to have supported Bpifrance from design to execution, ensuring each encounter delivered tangible impact for participants. We warmly thank the Bpifrance Export Team for the Americas for their renewed trust and look forward to leading the next programs together.

FACC Texas will continue to develop executive immersions and sector missions across the U.S., connecting innovators, corporates, and investors to accelerate collaboration and growth through technology.

For more information or to join future delegations: contact@facctexas.org