Benjamin Payet

Benjamin Payet

I run product at Ipsos Synthesio, where we build AI products for Fortune 500 brands. I like shipping early, prototyping with AI, and building some of the tools myself.


I've been CPO of Ipsos Synthesio since 2022 and interim CMO since 2026. I lead vision, strategy, roadmap and go-to-market for an 8-figure ARR data platform, and built the product team behind it. Our product combines classical and generative AI: BERT-based models for sentiment, emotion and entities, computer vision for logos and scenes, our agent Lumi, and MCP servers that bring our insight into clients' own AI tools. Lumi gets analysts answers in hours instead of days and puts the same insight within reach of marketing and brand teams. Synthesio was acquired by Ipsos in 2018 but still runs like a scale-up: a lean team, a roadmap we reset every quarter, and things in front of clients early. Before that I was at a 15-person startup, and before that in ERP integration; I trained in computer science.


Ship early

We put new features in front of clients as soon as they're useful and iterate. The redesign went out in steps, and user satisfaction moved from 65 to 75 in three months.

Prototype with AI

The PMs and I prototype with AI alongside our specs, so ideas meet clients before engineering commits.

Build it myself

I built and run our internal sales AI app: RAG over past RFPs, release notes and battlecards, on Cloudflare.

Watch AI costs

I care about which model runs each feature and what it costs, including the trade-off between per-token APIs and self-hosted open models on European GPUs.


Ipsos Synthesio

Chief Product Officer

Jan 2022 – Present

Social and search intelligence SaaS, acquired by Ipsos in 2018.

  • Defined the product vision and strategy and turned them into a quarterly roadmap prioritised with sales, customer success and our key countries. Presented it to our largest clients at our Client Strategic Board, where they endorsed it, and sales uses it in pitches. The team gained alignment and autonomy and ships faster.
  • Widened the platform from social listening to social, search, and ratings and reviews. ARR grew double digits, with deals above €1M.
  • Built and lead the product team (product management, design, product marketing) across four squads: hire and coach the PMs, prototype with AI alongside our specs, and run roadmap reviews with engineering leadership.
  • Shipped an MCP server that brings Synthesio insight into ChatGPT, Gemini and clients' own agents, packaged in two tiers priced on value and cost to serve.
  • Shipped our first AI agent (Lumi), cutting analyst turnaround from days to hours. Led the model and cost decisions with engineering, including API versus self-hosted open models on European GPUs, and set up our first LLM evaluation practice.
  • Traced lost enterprise RFPs to usability and won board budget for a redesign; brought in a UX agency, hired an in-house researcher and shipped in iterations. User satisfaction rose from 65 to 75 within three months of release.

Ipsos Synthesio

Interim Chief Marketing Officer

2026 – Present

Alongside the CPO role.

  • Own lead generation through new positioning, the synthesio.com rebuild, content at scale with a weekly video programme and agentic AI, and my own presence at conferences, webinars and client demos (speaker at Observe Summit, November 2026).

Ipsos Group

AI Factory, Product Lead

May – Sep 2026

Group assignment alongside the Synthesio role.

  • Product lead, with a technical counterpart, of a new Ipsos unit building client-facing AI agents on Gemini Enterprise. Wrote the first agent's requirements, designed the squad and drew up the hiring plan.

Ipsos Synthesio

Senior Product Manager

Jul 2019 – Dec 2021

  • Brought Ipsos survey data into the platform, letting market researchers combine survey and social data in one place.
  • Built the user-feedback tooling that improved training data for our NLP models, and a trend-detection product that finds emerging topics without a predefined query.

Quorum

Product Manager, Machine Learning & Analytics

Jul 2018 – Jul 2019

15-person GovTech SaaS startup.

  • Replaced the legacy desktop app with a CRM-style web platform and a new native mobile app, built around our ML ranking models; it is still the product customers use today.
  • Created the product process with a remote tech team in Bordeaux: a prioritised backlog, iterations ending in demos, and a process for urgent bugs.
  • Pitched and demoed the platform to prospects, helping sign the first enterprise customers (major French political parties), then the first customers abroad.

EY

Project Management Officer

Sep 2017 – Jun 2018

ERP integration.

  • Coordinated the ERP rollout for Agromousquetaires' wine businesses across France.

Sopra Steria

Business Analyst

Sep 2013 – Aug 2017

ERP integration for Thales and Safran.

  • Thales (2015 – 2017): designed and oversaw the rollout of Thales's new asset management system, which led to a dedicated entity managing all Thales assets.
  • Safran, work-study (2013 – 2015): IT and finance transformation programme, alongside the MSc.

MSc, Information Systems Engineering

Toulouse 1 University  ·  2012 – 2015  ·  work-study at Sopra Steria

Computer Science

Lyon 1 University  ·  2010 – 2012

Languages

French (native)  ·  English (fluent)