To help people make decisions and find solutions to problems, one must first understand a given situation. And this is truly complex, as numerous mental activities are involved. The challenge is to translate these human capacities into something intangible, into a machine, so that this machine can replicate these activities and act.

It is with this intention that the French family-owned company Aeteos™, specializing in the development of cognitive artificial intelligence solutions, a third-generation technology inspired by neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and linguistics, was founded in 2016 by two cognitive psychologists, Mark and Béatrice Pohlmann. They focus on a symbolic cognitive computing, “Made in France,” that understands natural language transparently and securely, is trustworthy and eco-responsible, and is designed to assist humans rather than replace them. This is how Percipion™, which embodies this philosophy, was born.

But it all began in 1994. Béatrice and Mark, cognitive psychology students in Paris, shared a passion for computer science and programming. They founded Beamak (a contraction of Béatrice & Mark), an association dedicated to exploring these ideas. During its years of activity, Beamak developed around twenty open-source software programs, distributed through the specialized press. In 1996, the association was recognized for a pioneering innovation: the first database capable of ingesting and searching unstructured information in natural language, as intuitively as chatting with a friend. This system was based on an advanced search algorithm incorporating fuzzy logic. It was notably used in 1997 to simulate dialogues on Minitel services.

As cognitive psychologists, Béatrice and Mark collaborated with the CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research) and the artificial intelligence research laboratory LAFORIA, before embarking on a career spanning more than 20 years in digital transformation consulting. They have led more than 200 projects for major European groups such as AG2R, Airbus, Areva, ASML, Bouygues Telecom, Europcar, France Télécom, Generali, Groupama, La Banque Postale, Orange, Pôle Emploi, Renault Nissan, SFR, Société Générale, Thales, Total and Vodafone, within companies such as Andersen Consulting (now Accenture), Capgemini and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

Head of the research programme dedicated to combating child sexual abuse within the Digital Humanities (HuNum) chair at the National Gendarmerie Research Centre.