VivaTech 2025 : between technological sovereignty, augmented creativity, and the search for meaning

Vivatech 2025: a week under intense AI focus

A key highlight: this edition of VivaTech 2025 coincided with the first GTC France organised by NVIDIA at the Maison de la Mutualité. A more technical, closed-door event, it was strongly targeted at developers, researchers, and industry professionals, with a clear aim of building a cohesive AI ecosystem within France.

Meanwhile, at VivaTech, AI was omnipresent—but in a more mature form, embedded within professional tools, products, and in-depth discussions. The “magical novelty” effect has faded: the focus is now on integration, regulation, and tangible impact.

A European – an sovereign - momentum

“Sovereign AI is an imperative,” declared Jensen Huang (co-founder of NVIDIA) during the VivaTech opening keynote, setting the tone. Europe is no longer content to simply adopt technologies developed elsewhere: it now seeks to understand them, master them, and make them its own. Arthur Mensch (co-founder of Mistral) emphasised the cultural, strategic, and industrial urgency of achieving this autonomy.

Numerous panels, demonstrations, and announcements reflected this drive for sovereignty: Franco-European partnerships (notably in cloud infrastructure, data centres, and open-source AI), a stronger presence of deeptech startups, and tangible progress on major industrial fronts such as energy, cybersecurity, defence, and healthcare.

VivaTech 2025: a more concrete, more creative – and better regulated - AI

This edition of VivaTech marked a shift in tone regarding generative AI: following the sense of wonder in 2023, the focus has now moved to robust use cases, model governance, and positioning AI as a catalyst for creativity.

Numerous startups, as well as established players like Adobe, Salesforce, and SAP, showcased practical tools for marketing, HR, and sales teams. France continues to demonstrate its vitality in the field, with platforms such as Leonardo.ai, Seelab.ai, Mendo, and Newtone making AI accessible to creatives, e-commerce professionals, and communications teams.

Mental health, climate, energy: tech in service of life

Another strong trend at VivaTech 2025 was purposeful tech. Far from empty solutionism, many startups showcased innovations designed to tackle major—often overlooked—challenges. Among them:

• Virtuosis.ai: vocal analysis for mental health disorders
• Zeni: wastewater reuse through microalgae
• Medusoil: natural biocementation for sustainable construction
• Stellaria: compact, clean next-generation nuclear reactor
• Optimus PV: flexible, coloured photovoltaic films for connected devices

This holistic approach to innovation—at the intersection of science, ecology, and sovereignty—reflects a growing maturity within the ecosystem.

Vivatech 2025: major corporations rethink their presence

LVMH signalled a strategic shift by showcasing primarily its flagship brands—Dior, Guerlain, Sephora—placing less emphasis on startups. Other groups, such as Salesforce, refocused their stands on proprietary solutions like Agentforce, while BNP Paribas, La Poste, and SNCF maintained a strong presence of partner startups.

This shift may reflect a desire for tighter image control… but it also raises questions about the future of VivaTech as a marketplace connecting corporates and startups.

Canada in the spotlight at VivaTech

This year’s guest country, Canada, brilliantly showcased its leadership in AI, cleantech, and digital health. Its 500-strong delegation and 170 companies—including Scale AI, the Vector Institute, and Mila—highlighted a well-structured and effective public–private–academic ecosystem.

Figures… to be taken with caution

While the organisers announced a cumulative 180,000 visitors and 14,000 startups "present," the method of calculation is questionable. On a comparable surface area, VivaTech still lags behind events like CES in Las Vegas or the Web Summit when it comes to certified B2B attendance.

A call for greater transparency around these figures could help strengthen the event’s credibility with sponsors and decision-makers.

Startups to watch: our 2 gems from VivaTech 2025

Out of the hundreds of startups explored, here is our selection:

• HABS – Human Augmented Brain System (France): Captures, cleans, and analyses your emotions using a brainwave (EEG) sensor. The demo of the show: revealing your emotional response while tasting Ladurée macarons—where neurodesign meets experiential luxury.
• Cubic Corp. (South Korea): A specialist in synthetic data generation, transforming sensitive data into anonymised datasets while preserving up to 99% of their utility. A powerful tool for leveraging data without regulatory constraints.

Conclusion: european tech between power and purpose

VivaTech 2025 also highlighted a growing gap between the AI narratives of major corporations and the realities on the ground. While many companies showcased impressive demonstrators to convey technological maturity, this polished image does not always reflect their actual internal practices or AI governance.

In reality, many large organisations are still feeling their way—particularly when it comes to integrating generative AI into business processes, managing risks, or upskilling their teams. This contrast is even more striking when compared to SMEs, mid-sized companies, or public-sector actors, who are often far less advanced—and in some cases paralysed—by the looming arrival of the AI Act, which is creating a climate of regulatory uncertainty.

Nevertheless, these large enterprises play a crucial role: they serve as benchmarks, guiding lights, or sources of inspiration for the wider ecosystem. Their presence at VivaTech acts as a catalyst, even if their stance could benefit from greater transparency and educational clarity.

To remain relevant, however, VivaTech will need to clarify its metrics, improve the visitor experience, and maintain a clear editorial line—balancing corporate showcase, innovation lab, and forum for meaningful tech.