Research conducted by artificial intelligence (AI) is “not trustworthy”, says the CEO of Choose Paris Region, Lionel Grotto, raising doubts over how the technology can be used in the future of investment promotion.

While other investment promotion agencies (IPAs) like Estonia and Phoenix have embraced the adoption of AI, the French capital’s investment promotion agency is less bullish on its potential for the industry.

“Though we believe that AI will be a game changer for investment promotion, we see that the technology has strong limitations,” Mr Grotto tells fDi Intelligence. He warns that IPAs “who go too fast in their adoption of AI might make some important mistakes”. 

"We want to be neither the first nor the last in the adoption of AI solutions. We’ll always make sure that the use of AI also fits with the values we believe in: trustworthiness, caution with biases, acceptability of the sharing of information and reliability vis-à-vis the sources used. We still want to learn to see what we can do better with AI,” he adds.

Not good for research

After having experimented with AI, Choose Paris Region has concluded that machine learning – one of the technology’s applications – is not well-suited to determining where, based on different economic parameters, a company might invest.

“We find that AI is not a good research tool,” says Mr Grotto. “If you ask AI to gather and analyse data between countries on tax levels, for instance, it makes errors, tends to invent data and doesn’t specify its sources. The research it produces is not trustworthy.”

“Nothing beats a person who finds and verifies the right source of information,” he adds.

AI is of greatest use, he says, in saving time on repetitive tasks. It also helps with translation, structuring website text, search engine optimisation, tenders and promotional material. “It works well in areas where there is a lot of information already,” he adds.

Having started to incorporate AI into its internal processes and research after ChatGPT was unveiled in November 2022, Choose Paris is still in the early stages of its AI exploration. At present, some 20% of its employees use generative AI in their work. Meanwhile the city of Paris is growing as one of Europe’s key AI hubs, with 150 research and development labs dedicated to the technology.

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Trustworthy data

In July, the IPA merged with the regional tourism committee ahead of France hosting this year’s Rugby World Cup and the 2024 Olympic Games. It now offers itself up as the one-stop shop for investors, visitors and talent from around the world.

When asked whether AI can enable IPAs to shift from investment promotors to consultants, he says that this is already underway but stresses the need for reliable data points.

“I see the vision but I think we should be clear that the tools we use should make their sources explicit,” he says. “We want to have a global, open approach to data. We may not be writing the talking points ourselves but our job is to make sure the data is trustworthy.”

Choose Paris Region is one of the 14 European IPAs that have formed the Choose Europe campaign, which is working to promote the continent as an investment destination. Part of its work involves looking at ways to develop AI technologies and data tools. “We want to learn both internally and together with other IPAs. But I’m cautious about how far it can affect our business,” Mr Grotto says. “Humans still need to be at the centre [of this] and I see more humans refining the use of AI than AI replacing humans.”

This article was updated shortly after publication to clarify a quote.