(AOF) – Considered too close to the vision of Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, BNP Paribas has just been sidelined by the bankers leading the negotiations in the Atos file, says Les Echos. In total, French banks hold 38% of Atos’ bank debt. Furthermore, the chairman of the board of directors of the IT group Jean-Pierre Mustier denounced in the daily newspaper “unacceptable public statements which damage the reputation of the group”.
The manager “wishes these comments to stop immediately to allow our employees to continue working peacefully to support our customers with all the energy and dedication they show every day.”
Yesterday, Daniel Kretinsky painted a gloomy picture of Atos in the columns of Le Figaro, judging that the group “is falling off the cliff”.
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Moving forward in generative AI
Digital companies have already started to adapt their offers and practices to this development, which combines ChatGPT and information systems. The most developed use cases concern call centers with the intervention of chatbots or in marketing, to generate text or images automatically. The potential is enormous and Accenture France aims to achieve 30% of its activity with the data & AI niche by 2025. World market leader, Accenture has announced $3 billion in investment over three years in this area, with a doubling in the number of dedicated employees to reach 80,000 (out of 738,000 in total). As for the French leader in the sector, Capgemini, it is targeting an investment of 2 billion euros over the next three years, and 60,000 specialized employees (out of 360,000 currently).
Artificial intelligence now regulated in Europe
An attempt was made to find a balance between the desire to protect the fundamental rights of citizens and the desire not to restrict the development of European start-ups. The French and German associations of digital companies, Numeum and Bitkom, had also called for a European regulation on artificial intelligence (AI Act) favorable to innovation for AI in Europe and without overly restrictive rules, particularly for generative AI. The European approach is to impose obligations for high-risk AI systems, rated from low to unacceptable. For the regulation of generative AI (ChatGPT type systems), the EU has established stronger requirements for the most powerful models.