Simon and his AI double

A self-taught adoption

“I’m responsible for localization at BlaBlaCar. I adapt the platform’s content into 18 languages across 21 countries,” explains Simon Rimbert, Senior Project Manager. It’s a role in which artificial intelligence now plays a decisive and transformative part.

His journey with AI began in 2023. “It wasn’t my field of expertise. I got interested out of curiosity, teaching myself through videos and articles before testing the tools at work.”

This personal initiative quickly found strong support at BlaBlaCar. The company created an “AI Guild,” an internal group aimed at encouraging the adoption of these technologies. Simon became a member, alongside other enthusiasts, to help teams integrate AI into their daily work.

Creating his “digital double”

His use of AI goes far beyond simple content translation. He created his own agent with Gemini (Google’s AI), feeding it his job description, workflows, and needs. “It’s become a kind of digital alter ego. I can ask it questions as if it were a colleague.”

This personalized assistant is both an executor and a thinking partner. “Working alone, I lacked brainstorming opportunities. Before, I wrote down ideas in a spreadsheet while waiting for a solution to emerge. Now my AI assistant replies instantly and opens up new possibilities.”

Tangible benefits

The translation process, previously handled by two external teams, can now be initiated by Simon thanks to AI, reducing both delays and costs. For certain automations, he estimates he saves a full workday per month.

Quality has improved too. Simon acknowledges that AI’s ability to synthesize sometimes surpasses his own. For internal documents or wiki pages, it helps him to produce content faster and better, with angles he wouldn’t necessarily have considered.

Even though he isn’t a coder, Simon has also created software tools with AI’s help. For example, he developed a translation-format converter. “I was able to prototype in an hour that which, in the traditional process, would have taken one or two weeks of back-and-forth with an engineer.” AI also assists him in negotiating with vendors and preparing presentations.

Overcoming limitations with pragmatism

Enthusiasm doesn’t rule out caution. “Generative AI sometimes produces poor results,” Simon admits. In his domain, he knows how to assess quality; elsewhere, he remains vigilant and multiplies checks. For translation, human review remains mandatory.

Security and compliance concerns are also addressed. BlaBlaCar uses Gemini in a secure enterprise environment, ensuring data confidentiality. The company’s “AI Guild” ensures best practices and the use of approved tools.

A rapid evolution of uses

In a fast-moving tech landscape, Simon closely follows updates from OpenAI and other platforms, constantly testing new use cases. Within the Guild, several members share this monitoring effort to keep the company informed about the latest innovations. His range of uses is so broad he struggles to list them all: AI has now integrated itself into almost every aspect of his work. Two years after his first steps, he can no longer imagine working without it.

A model of successful integration

The experience of  Simon Rimbert, now one of BlaBlaCar’s “AI champions,” illustrates a pragmatic and effective approach to integrating AI in a company. It is built on several factors: personal initiative that is encouraged rather than imposed; a culture of sharing that spreads best practices; and a balance between autonomy and oversight that ensures security and compliance.