La Cohorte: Training to Support SMEs in Their AI Projects
Innovaud is now accepting applications for the third edition of La Cohorte IA, a program designed for SMEs in the Canton of Vaud that want to integrate artificial intelligence into their operations but are not yet sure which use case to prioritize, what data to use, or how to structure their approach. Developed in collaboration with the Swiss Data Science Center (SDSC), HEIG-VD, platinn, and Trust Valley, the program will take place in Lausanne over six consecutive Thursdays, from❗️October 29❗️to December 10, 2026.
The Cohort is part of a broader support program designed for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that, depending on their specific challenges and level of maturity, wish to initiate, structure, or implement a project based on artificial intelligence. Along with two other components led more specifically by the SDSC, this program also paves the way for pilot and/or collaborative projects.
More information on Place IA.
6 weeks to turn a business need into a concrete digital project using AI
Designed for companies that want to turn their interest in AI into a truly actionable project, the AI Cohort takes a highly practical approach with no technical prerequisites. The program consists of 6 workshops, supplemented by 6 hours of personalized mentoring per company. The program begins with the fundamentals and the identification of potential use cases, before helping participants select their project using a matrix that weighs impact against feasibility, define success metrics and return on investment, and then work on data availability and quality. The subsequent stages address change management, team buy-in, security, data sovereignty, and data governance, before culminating in the operational scoping of the project.
At the end of the 6 weeks, each company should thus walk away with one or two prioritized use cases, a set of specifications that can be shared with a service provider or used to evaluate a solution available on the market, as well as a short-, medium-, and long-term AI roadmap.
For SMEs in Vaud, the value lies precisely in this early-stage approach to technological development: rather than starting by choosing a tool or a vendor, La Cohorte allows companies to begin with their business needs, available data, and expected value, while incorporating human, organizational, and governance considerations from the very start. This approach reduces the risk of investing in an ill-suited solution and lays the groundwork for an AI project that is sufficiently structured to move on to the experimentation or deployment phase.
