Jérôme Pesenti

Jérôme currently leads Facebook AI. Jérôme has been working in AI for the past 20 years, including as CEO of BenevolentTech, the technology division of BenevolentAI, a British technology company using AI to accelerate scientific discovery. Prior to that role Jérôme was VP at IBM Watson, where he led the creation and development of the IBM Watson Platform. Jérôme joined IBM after its acquisition of Vivisimo, a tech firm specializing in text mining and enterprise search engines, which he co-founded in 2000.

Jérôme was also a visiting scientist at Carnegie Mellon University’s computer science department, researching text mining and AI. More recently he served as co-chair of an independent review on the growth of AI, commissioned by the UK government in 2016. That review’s 2017 report led to a sector deal, solidifying partnerships between the government and the tech industry to boost innovation in AI. He is an alumnus of the École Normale Supérieure in Paris with a Ph.D. in pure maths and degrees in philosophy and cognitive sciences.