In France, the duty to consult the CSE under Code du travail L2312-8 comes before the technology does, and the CNIL has been designated to police workplace AI under the AI Act. Rahim Hirji gives keynotes in Paris for boards and leadership teams who want to decide what stays human before that consultation begins.
Rahim Hirji is available for in-person AI keynotes in Paris, France, and for online sessions worldwide. He is a London-based keynote speaker specialising in AI and human judgement, and the author of SuperSkills (Kogan Page, 2026). He founded the skills platform EtonX, later acquired by Eton College, and led Quizlet’s international growth across more than 60 countries.
The local instrument
Code du travail L2312-8, and the CNIL's AI Act designationRead at the issuing body’s own page, and quoted in full below.
Watch the showreel · 2 minutes
A feel for the room before you put me in front of yours.
SuperSkills is endorsed by Karim Lakhani (Harvard Business School), Alnoor Bhimani (London School of Economics), David Rowan (founding editor, WIRED UK), Sherry Coutu CBE and ten others. Rahim has spoken to leadership teams at Google, Barclays, Kaplan, BPP University and Next 15. Published by Kogan Page, part of Hachette UK.
What organisers say
“We brought Rahim in to help our EMEA People Operations leadership team think through AI and human judgement. He surveyed us beforehand, sixteen of eighteen answered, and he built the session from our own responses, so the whole morning was about us. I’d recommend him to any leadership team working out what should stay human.”
Karina Govindji, Director, Head of HR UK, Google. Booked a leadership session.
“Rahim's keynote on human judgement in the age of AI was brilliant. We asked for something realistic rather than alarmist, and equally not falsely reassuring, and he delivered exactly that. Our students were captivated by every word, and we want him back.”
Charlotte Wanendeya, Head of Law, BPP University Law School. Booked a keynote and panel for law students.
On the book
“At a time of profound change and uncertainty, I distrust anyone promising simple solutions. This is the antidote. A marvellously humane model for building capability amid the 21st century's tumult.”
Dr Tom Chatfield, Author of Wise Animals
How a session in Paris is put together
French works-council consultation can sit on the critical path for anything that changes how people work, so the sequence is agreed before the date is. Every keynote is tailored after a briefing call, and the larger engagements start before the day rather than on it: a diagnostic of the client's own people, so the room hears its own evidence rather than somebody else's. What the room leaves with is written down.
What that has looked like: about 1,500 people joining a session run hybrid from central London at short notice, for a technology business changing AI tools faster than its people could absorb, which became executive coaching for the transformation lead; and an agency business convening Asia, Asia-Pacific, EMEA and North America into one event, where the work was naming the recurring situations nobody had vocabulary for, and the company took that wording into its strategy.
Six of the seven engagements published on this site produced further work after the session rather than at it. The seven are set out in full at case studies, each with a line saying what it does not show.
How to read these examples. They are published to show how the work is put together, not as a client list for Paris. Most engagements are covered by confidentiality and are described without naming anyone; where a client is named anywhere on this site, it is with their agreement.
The French duty that lands before the technology does
Article L2312-8 of the Code du travail requires the comité social et économique to be informed and consulted on questions concerning the organisation, management and general running of the undertaking, and names among them « L’introduction de nouvelles technologies, tout aménagement important modifiant les conditions de santé et de sécurité ou les conditions de travail »: the introduction of new technologies, and any significant adjustment altering health and safety conditions or working conditions.
It is binding, it bites at fifty employees. It is the reason an AI rollout in a French organisation has a consultation on its critical path that its London or New York equivalent does not. Read at the Ministry of Labour’s own Code du travail numérique, where the article is marked as updated 25 August 2021.
Worth saying for accuracy: this is a duty to inform and consult, not a veto. It changes the sequence and the timetable rather than the decision.
A session in the round, rather than in rows
The regulator that will police workplace AI, and what it has not yet published
Under the national governance scheme published by the Direction générale des Entreprises and the DGCCRF on 9 September 2025, the authority designated for high-risk AI in emploi, gestion de la main d’œuvre is the CNIL. The CNIL is also designated for the prohibition on inference of emotions in the workplace.
That is a data protection regulator holding the employment file, which is a meaningful choice and not the arrangement every member state has made.
The status matters and is usually reported wrongly. The DGE’s own governance diagram carries the line « Sous réserve de l’acceptation par le Parlement dans le cadre d’un projet de loi »: subject to acceptance by Parliament by means of a bill. As at 7 September 2026 no page on any French government domain states that the bill has passed. So France has published its scheme and has not yet legislated it, and anybody telling a Paris audience otherwise has read a summary rather than the source.
The CNIL finalised its recommendations on developing AI systems on 22 July 2025 and, on that page, had not issued a workplace framework: it describes having begun a reflection process with sector stakeholders to define one. The regulator that will police employment AI has not yet said what it expects.
France does publish an adoption figure, and it does not mean what it is used to mean
INSEE reports that 18 per cent of enterprises used at least one AI technology in 2025, against 10 per cent in 2024 and 6 per cent in 2023, with the EU average at 20 per cent. By size: 15 per cent at ten to forty-nine employees, 31 per cent at fifty to two hundred and forty-nine, and 58 per cent above that. By sector, information and communication leads at 59 per cent and transport and storage trails at 9 per cent. Insee Première number 2120, published 21 July 2026.
The population is enterprises of ten or more employees in principally market sectors, excluding agriculture, finance and insurance: about 194,000 enterprises employing 13.5 million people, from a sample of 11,000.
And the caveat INSEE attaches to it, which almost nobody carries. The survey measures organised use. In INSEE’s own words, responses « n’incluent en principe pas les utilisations de l’IA que peuvent faire les salariés ponctuellement et à titre individuel »: they do not in principle include ad-hoc individual use by employees. So 18 per cent is what French organisations have adopted, not what French employees are doing. Anyone quoting it as the second has misread it.
No equivalent headline statistic was found from DARES, which runs seminars and research calls on AI and employment rather than publishing an adoption series. Stated as a search-limited negative rather than as a proven absence.
A note from Rahim
Paris, under three hours from my door
France puts things in a sensible order: the CSE must be consulted under article L2312-8 before the technology arrives, and the CNIL now polices workplace AI under the AI Act. That forces a decision most countries postpone. I have addressed Google's EMEA People Operations leadership, and people leaders carry this consultation. Your executive committee reaches the CSE meeting with a position it chose. Paris is under three hours from London by train, so a morning session is easy to arrange. I work from the French texts and deliver in English.
Paris is a short train ride from Rahim's London base, for keynotes and advisory work alike. Each week he also writes Box of Amazing, his free letter on emerging technology. Keynotes · Advisory · Box of Amazing
The three keynotes a Paris room can book
Keynotes run 30 to 90 minutes, in person or virtual. A 30-minute main-stage version of each talk is available for conferences, and the full talk runs 45 to 60 minutes. The sector examples change for the room; the argument does not. All three, with the showreel, are at keynotes, and the programme copy is at the speaker pack.
Drift versus Design is built from your room. Your audience answers five anonymous questions beforehand, their answers shape the talk, and afterwards you get a one-page readout with the three decisions to look at first.
Drift versus Design: why most organisations hand their judgement to AI without deciding to, and how to design your way through instead.
French employers must consult the CSE before introducing new technology. The talk gets management to that consultation having already decided where judgement sits, instead of discovering it in the meeting.
We Are Superheroes
We Are Superheroes: AI is the suit. The human decides.
Staff representatives and managers rarely share a vocabulary for AI. The seven skills give both sides of a Paris CSE conversation the same words before it starts, with Empathetic Communication doing most of the work.
WTH (What the Human)
WTH (What the Human): a live test of a board's own judgement.
A half-day for the executive committee before the CSE consultation: the CNIL's likely questions on workplace AI, and a check on whether the adoption figures in the paper mean what everyone assumes.
Where these sessions happen in Paris, and when they can
Capacities below are the venue’s own published figures, read on the venue’s own site rather than from a directory. Viparis operates three of the four, so viparis.com is the operator’s own domain despite looking like a portfolio.
Palais des Congrès de Paris
The Grand Amphithéâtre seats 3,723, plus ten wheelchair spaces, and can be run as a half-house at 1,813. Metro line 1 at Porte Maillot, RER C and E, tram T3b. The amphitheatre has direct internal access to the breakout and catering levels, so a delegate never leaves the building between sessions. Stage 1,200 square metres with ten metres of height over it.
Paris Convention Centre, Porte de Versailles
A 5,200-seat plenary on level 7.3, inside Pavilion 7. The load-in on level 7.1 is level access, so a large stage build rolls in rather than being craned, which is the single biggest cost difference between Paris venues for a production-heavy keynote. A planted rooftop terrace sits directly above the plenary.
Maison de la Chimie
The Amphithéâtre Lavoisier seats 853, being 516 in the stalls and 337 in the balcony. Its foyer has natural daylight onto a private 900 square metre garden, which is rare in central Paris at this size. Three interpreting booths and a 6.3 by 3.6 metre screen. Metro at Invalides or Assemblée Nationale.
Les Salles du Carrousel, Carrousel du Louvre
The Espace Le Nôtre holds 1,600 and the Gabriel and Delorme spaces combined hold 2,200. Retractable tiered seating turns the same footprint from a plenary into a flat-floor dinner overnight. A separate caterer’s office and goods lifts mean catering never crosses the plenary. Note that higher theatre figures circulate for this venue and do not appear anywhere on its own site.
Two 2027 dates are published by their organisers and both fall in the same week of June, which is worth knowing before proposing one. VivaTech runs 16 to 19 June 2027 at Porte de Versailles. The International Paris Air Show at Le Bourget runs 14 to 20 June 2027, its 53rd edition and a hundred years since Lindbergh arrived there.
One to keep off a Paris plan. GLOBAL INDUSTRIE alternates between Paris and Lyon and its 2027 edition is in Lyon, 15 to 18 March at Eurexpo, per the organiser’s own site. Any 2027 Paris list carrying it is wrong.
And one name change. Paris Retail Week no longer exists under that name. From 2025 it was rebranded as NRF Retail’s Big Show Europe, same city and same venue, confirmed in the co-organiser’s own release. Big Data & AI Paris continues and has announced a repositioning toward enterprise decision-makers.
Dates for Big Data & AI Paris, Produrable, Tech for Retail and NRF Europe are not yet published for 2027, so this page names their most recent confirmed edition rather than extrapolating a pattern.
This argument is also published for readers in: Français. Every one of those pages states, in that language, that the keynote itself is delivered in English.
Formats and logistics
Signature keynote
Drift versus Design
Length
30 to 90 minutes, or a board session
Language
English only
Region
Paris and France
Delivery
In person and online
Based
London, under three hours to Paris
Local anchor
Code du travail L2312-8, and the CNIL's AI Act designation
What the first conversation usually sounds like, in composite“We want a session for a Paris leadership audience that engages with the French position rather than a translated version of a London talk.”
Before you book
Questions asked about Paris.
Who is a good AI keynote speaker in Paris?
Rahim Hirji is a London-based AI keynote speaker and the author of SuperSkills (Kogan Page, 2026), who travels to Paris for conferences, boards and leadership teams. His argument is that AI comes for judgement before it comes for jobs. Keynotes are delivered in English. The research behind the talk is published in full: 547 graded studies drawn from work across more than 200 organisations in over 30 countries, each with what it does and does not prove.
Does Rahim Hirji deliver keynotes in French?
No. All keynotes are delivered in English only. This site publishes a guide to the argument in French for readers rather than for audiences, and that page says the same thing in French. Travel from London to Paris is under three hours by train.
What does the keynote say about the French position on AI at work?
That Article L2312-8 of the Code du travail puts a works-council consultation on the critical path of anything that changes working conditions, which is binding at fifty employees; that under the governance scheme published in September 2025 the CNIL is the designated authority for workplace AI, a scheme still awaiting a parliamentary bill; and that INSEE's 18 per cent adoption figure measures organised use rather than what employees are doing, which INSEE says itself and almost nobody repeats.
How far in advance should we book for an event in Paris?
Six to twelve weeks is comfortable. From London the journey is under three hours, so a coach fare and one night, and a same-day return is possible for an afternoon slot. If the session is tied to an internal change programme, allow for the consultation sequence, which usually sets the date rather than the other way round.
What does it cost to bring Rahim Hirji to Paris?
Most conference keynotes come in around £10,000, quoted per engagement, with a reply within 24 hours of a brief. Travel from London is short-haul and billed at cost. What an AI keynote costs across the market, and the six budget lines underneath the fee, is set out at what an AI keynote speaker costs.
When is Rahim Hirji not the right speaker for a Paris event?
For an AI tools demonstration, a vendor pitch, a technical briefing on how models work, or a session that needs an optimistic message with the difficult part removed. The guide to choosing an AI keynote speaker names four other kinds of speaker and when to pick each.
Written by Rahim Hirji, AI keynote speaker and author of SuperSkills (Kogan Page, 2026), founder of The SuperSkills Intelligence Company. The research is published openly with every source graded. Found an error? Tell me and it is corrected on the page.
Paris
Tell me about your room before the CSE meets
Let me know the decision your organisation faces and when the consultation starts. We plan the session back from that date.
Not every brief is a talk. A board that needs to settle which decisions a machine may make wants a board briefing, a review or a standing advisor, and the five formats are set out side by side with what each one is for.
Box of Amazing
Rahim’s free weekly letter on AI and human capability
No enquiry today, or not yet the right time? The weekly letter is the low-commitment version of the same argument. Every week, an essay and ten links to broaden your view of the world. Read by 25,000 people, every week since 2017. Free, and one click to stop.
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Charlotte Wanendeya, Head of Law, BPP University Law School. Booked a keynote and panel for law students.
