Ten years after its launch, VivaTech has become Europe’s largest technology event, bringing together 200,000 entrepreneurs, investors, corporates and policymakers from around the world.
Once the crowds had gone home, the French Tech Journal sat down with VivaTech CEO, François Bitouzet, to reflect on what really emerged from this year’s event.
From AI’s shift from hype to business value to Europe’s sovereignty debate and the technologies that captured his imagination, these are the five takeaways he’ll remember from VivaTech 2026.
VivaTech has just celebrated its biggest edition ever. What’s your biggest takeaway?
FB: My first takeaway is simple: the new model works.
For this 10th edition, we wanted to scale up - and that meant rethinking the event from the ground up. It’s something we’d been working on for two years: 15,000 extra square meters, three floors, a new home in Hall 7 at Porte de Versailles, a completely new visitor journey, and new features like our Business Plaza, designed to help people meet and create new opportunities.
The reaction was fantastic. Everywhere I went, people were saying, “This is great. Why didn’t you do this before?!”
What makes me especially proud is that, while we’ve changed the format, the DNA is definitely still the same. Since the very first VivaTech in 2016, our ambition has been to showcase the best of French and European tech - to show the world that great innovation isn’t only happening in the US or China.
Honestly, I’ve been blown away by the quality of today’s founders and startups and by what has been achieved over the past ten years. We wanted to create a window onto European innovation, and today I think we can genuinely be proud of what we’ve built.
VivaTech is the same, but different. And I hope, better.
