Five Canadian and international startups have been selected to join the inaugural cohort of the AI@CENTECH program, hosted by Thales.

AI@CENTECH is a six-month program focused on “the most promising AI innovators around the world.” It claims to accelerate growth and market potential.

Here’s the five companies:

• Age of Minds (Canada) is building a training platform for artificial intelligence agents using entertainment to engage large quantities of users in rich, two-way interactions.
• BlackBox (Canada) instantly generates summary keywords of every discussion and scans through video and audio files to find desired information.
• Delfox (France) designed and developed an artificial intelligence solution that allows vehicles in aeronautics, space and defense to evolve autonomously without human intervention or pre-programming.
• Fieldbox.ai (France) has created a platform deploying AI-trained industrial bots in the hearts of factories, continuously and autonomously optimizing processes and operating machines.
• ICM Hub (USA) develops conversational artificial intelligence for airlines, providing an automated, first-class and AI-powered customer service solution that couples natural language processing and machine learning.

Each startup will receive guidance from business and AI industry coaches providing advisory services related to fundraising, product enhancement, design, visibility, proof of concept, and market access.

Since 2014, Thales has invested nearly 7 billion euros in digital technologies, including artificial intelligence.