France Travail makes AI a new accelerator for getting people back into work

| minute read
Since 2017, France Travail and Sopra Steria have been developing a partnership built around a clear ambition: to harness artificial intelligence for the benefit of France Travail users, its advisers, recruiting companies and, ultimately, helping people back into work. It is a long-term collaboration founded on trust, close cooperation and fully shared objectives.

France Travail is France’s public employment service. Its 55,000 advisers, working across 900 branches throughout the country, support jobseekers and help companies recruit.

This dual mission is directly affected by the constant transformation of jobs, skills and recruitment practices. Career paths are no longer linear. This reality calls for a more agile approach, focused more on transferable skills than on job titles alone, as well as more targeted and personalised interactions.

That is why, almost ten years ago, France Travail decided to modernise the way it operates by harnessing the power of artificial intelligence technologies. The objective was to improve its ability to assess needs, guide people towards the right opportunities and provide advice. France Travail selected Sopra Steria to help implement its AI use cases and establish the dedicated technology platforms required.

France Travail: AI helping people return to work
1 01:00:00,159 --> 01:00:02,199 At France Travail, we firmly believe that 2 01:00:02,280 --> 01:00:04,159 technology empowers people. 3 01:00:04,519 --> 01:00:07,880 AI and automation enable our advisers to devote more time to 4 01:00:07,960 --> 01:00:10,920 supporting individuals and businesses, 5 01:00:11,119 --> 01:00:13,440 a real catalyst for getting people back into work. 6 01:00:17,480 --> 01:00:19,199 France Travail is France's public employment service. 7 01:00:20,360 --> 01:00:24,480 Its 55,000 advisers, working across 900 branches throughout France, 8 01:00:24,639 --> 01:00:27,639 are committed to supporting people through every kind of career transition 9 01:00:27,719 --> 01:00:29,559 and helping businesses recruit. 10 01:00:29,920 --> 01:00:32,480 Our mission lies at the heart of the French economy. 11 01:00:32,639 --> 01:00:36,679 It is also directly affected by the rapid transformation of jobs, 12 01:00:36,880 --> 01:00:39,119 skills and recruitment practices. 13 01:00:39,719 --> 01:00:43,639 That is why, for nearly 10 years, we have been modernising our 14 01:00:43,719 --> 01:00:46,559 operating models, drawing on artificial 15 01:00:46,639 --> 01:00:47,960 intelligence technology. 16 01:00:48,559 --> 01:00:53,639 The aim: to improve our diagnostic, guidance and advisory capabilities. 17 01:00:54,280 --> 01:00:57,280 And to achieve this, we set out a 18 01:00:57,360 --> 01:00:59,719 responsible integration roadmap, to build a robust 19 01:01:00,159 --> 01:01:03,159 value-creating technological foundation and, of course, 20 01:01:03,280 --> 01:01:06,239 strengthen our digital sovereignty at every stage. 21 01:01:08,119 --> 01:01:11,079 We have been working with Sopra Steria for several years now 22 01:01:11,159 --> 01:01:12,840 for three main reasons: 23 01:01:12,920 --> 01:01:16,159 their in-depth knowledge of public sector ecosystems, 24 01:01:16,400 --> 01:01:20,599 their recognised expertise in AI and data, and their ability to 25 01:01:20,679 --> 01:01:22,000 support us from end to end. 26 01:01:22,559 --> 01:01:26,480 Sopra Steria helps us to challenge and formalise our strategy, 27 01:01:26,639 --> 01:01:30,079 to structure our approach and architectures, and to establish 28 01:01:30,159 --> 01:01:33,679 an operational framework and onboard our business 29 01:01:33,760 --> 01:01:35,360 teams in this transformation. 30 01:01:36,360 --> 01:01:38,920 Already this partnership has delivered several 31 01:01:39,000 --> 01:01:41,159 operational solutions. 32 01:01:41,360 --> 01:01:46,119 ChatFT, our conversational assistant, has been rolled out to all our 33 01:01:46,239 --> 01:01:48,800 55,000 advisers since the end of 2024. 34 01:01:49,440 --> 01:01:51,719 MatchFT is reinventing and accelerating 35 01:01:51,719 --> 01:01:53,159 the process of bringing together 36 01:01:53,400 --> 01:01:56,119 a career pathway, a job opportunity or training course, for example, 37 01:01:56,360 --> 01:02:00,119 and a candidate, through matching capabilities and a conversation 38 01:02:00,320 --> 01:02:02,400 guided by generative AI. 39 01:02:04,679 --> 01:02:07,199 Sopra Steria supports France Travail's 40 01:02:07,280 --> 01:02:10,400 major transformations, acting as a trusted partner, 41 01:02:10,679 --> 01:02:13,440 above and beyond a traditional customer-supplier relationship. 42 01:02:14,039 --> 01:02:17,800 We will continue to explore new possibilities and to develop 43 01:02:17,880 --> 01:02:21,280 autonomous, high-performance artificial intelligence for 44 01:02:21,280 --> 01:02:22,280 one specific purpose 45 01:02:22,400 --> 01:02:25,400 to promote a lasting return to work.

AI solutions already delivering results

Sopra Steria has mobilised a wide range of experts alongside France Travail’s AI department, helping to challenge and formalise its strategy, structure its approaches and architectures, and establish a secure framework for operational implementation.

Sopra Steria has also supported change management, helping business teams engage with this major transformation. Today, this significant partnership is delivering high-value solutions that have notably helped reduce the average time required to fill job vacancies by 3.5 days. Some of the key technologies include:

“We had three priorities: free up time, make data and applications easier to access through natural language, and harness generative AI to rethink services for advisers and users.”

Sylvain Poirier

AI Project Director at France Travail

ChatFT, a conversational assistant, has been available to France Travail’s 55,000 advisers since the end of 2024.

Connected to France Travail’s data, ChatFT allows employees to interact using natural language to draft and summarise content, search for information or prepare certain actions.

In almost a year and a half, the tool has become a genuine copilot for the 30,000 employees who use it every day, saving them up to three hours per week — time that can instead be devoted to providing advice and support.

MatchFT improves the matching of candidates with opportunities.

The tool enables faster and more relevant pre-selection through SMS-based pre-qualification supported by generative AI. It assesses criteria including interest in the vacancy, availability, mobility, salary expectations, experience and the tasks involved.

Selected applications can be submitted within a matter of hours, and a large majority of candidates respond in under 90 minutes.

ChatFT Écoute, a tool that can, for example, produce interview summaries.

ChatFT Écoute addresses another practical challenge: enabling advisers to remain fully focused on the interviews they are conducting rather than being distracted by note-taking.

The tool automatically captures and transcribes conversations without recording them, then generates a summary that can easily be incorporated into the information system.

Sovereign AI focused on impact

These innovative solutions all have one thing in common: they strengthen the adviser’s role rather than replacing it.

For jobseekers, this means smoother support that is better adapted to their individual circumstances; for recruiters, an enhanced ability to quickly identify relevant and available candidates; and for France Travail, AI that is fully aligned with its public-service mission and digital sovereignty policy.

As a major European technology player and the leading provider of digital services to the public sector in France, Sopra Steria has helped France Travail turn AI into a powerful driver of efficiency in less than a decade.

The partnership will continue with the same objective: making AI a beneficial, controlled and sustainable tool for helping people back into work.

  • Nearly 10 years of close partnership between France Travail and Sopra Steria on AI integration
  • 20+ Sopra Steria employees mobilised at the height of the collaboration
  • 55,000 France Travail advisers now equipped with AI tools dedicated to their work

Using AI to combine scale with high-quality support

At the scale at which France Travail operates, the integration of AI needed to deliver lasting, measurable improvements to day-to-day activities: better assessment of individual situations, faster guidance towards a job vacancy, training opportunity or relevant information, and reduced administrative workload — ultimately allowing people to remain at the heart of the employment journey.

With support from Sopra Steria’s teams, France Travail has been able to define a responsible AI integration roadmap and build a robust, value-creating technology foundation, while strengthening its digital sovereignty at every stage.

The partnership draws on the strengths of a group such as Sopra Steria: its deep understanding of public-sector ecosystems, recognised expertise in AI and data, ability to deliver end-to-end solutions, and capacity to support skills development.

“Our role is to be a thinking partner — one capable of challenging the roadmap through its experience and expertise, from both a strategic and an operational perspective.”

Benoît Goure

Global Account Manager France Work at Sopra Steria

artificial-intelligence

data

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