VIANEO & ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

NEO ACADEMY: SOCRATIC AI FOR ENTREPRENEURS

What if every project leader (student entrepreneur, PhD candidate, or researcher) could receive high-quality guidance without placing additional strain on support teams?

NEO is an AI conversational agent designed to accelerate the market readiness of entrepreneurial projects. Using a Socratic approach, it guides project leaders through a structured series of questions based on the Vianeo Business Design method, helping them clarify their value proposition, test their assumptions, and build a coherent project.

AN AI TOOL DESIGNED FOR THE CHALLENGES OF UNIVERSITY ECOSYSTEMS

Accessible to all stakeholders across the ecosystem, NEO can be deployed as a secure, sovereign, white-label AI expert for entrepreneurship.

NEO integrates into your support programs to guide project leaders while fully respecting your confidentiality requirements and data governance standards.

Beyond support, the tool helps accelerate project selection, analyze strategy, and compare projects consistently. It provides a clear basis for filtering, prioritizing, and investing through a more objective and systematic evaluation process.

NEO STRENGTHENS THE IMPACT
OF YOUR SUPPORT PROGRAMS

RIGOROUS PROJECT STRUCTURING

1 – Clarifies the value proposition and key assumptions

2 – Builds a strong project model step by step

GREATER AUTONOMY FOR PROJECT LEADERS

1 – Educational conversations that guide reflection step by step

2 – Structured progress without constant involvement from support teams

STANDARDIZED SUPPORT PROCESSES

1 – A shared methodological framework based on Business Design

2 – Automatic generation of a structured, actionable project file

EASIER PROGRAM MANAGEMENT

1 – Consistent analysis, filtering, prioritization, and easier project screening

2 – Scalable support without compromising pedagogical quality

STRUCTURED SUPPORT, GUIDED BY AI

NEO supports project leaders through a structured conversation based on Vianeo’s Business Design methodology. Step by step, the AI agent helps them define their problem, clarify their value proposition, identify critical assumptions, and structure their project model.

Project leaders can therefore move forward independently while staying within a demanding methodological framework

EXPLORE THE PROBLEM AND ITS IMPACT ON THE MARKET

NEO guides project leaders through the key stages of Vianeo’s Business Design method to clarify the problem, the users, and the value proposition. Through successive questions, the AI helps them adopt a more structured mindset and highlights the project’s first weaknesses.

TEST KEY ASSUMPTIONS

NEO helps project leaders identify their critical assumptions and prepare for validation. Methodological alerts point out blind spots and encourage field exploration. As a result, project leaders become more aware of the uncertainties in their model and can gradually strengthen the credibility of their entrepreneurial approach.

STRUCTURE THE PROJECT

As progress is made, NEO generates a structured summary report including the value proposition, assumptions, business model elements, and action plan. This standardized file makes projects easier to assess, helps identify gaps quickly, and gives support teams a clear basis for decision-making.

TURN A TECHNOLOGY IDEA
INTO A STRUCTURED ENTREPRENEURIAL PROJECT

NEO supports engineers, researchers, and student entrepreneurs through the early stages of project development. Through a guided conversation inspired by Business Design, the tool helps them confront their technology with market reality, structure their thinking, and articulate their assumptions.

Methodological alerts, progress indicators, and the automatically generated summary report make entrepreneurial learning easier while also giving support teams a clear view of how the project is progressing.

Confront technology with market reality

NEO encourages project leaders to reframe their technology idea as a user problem. Through guided questions and Business Design steps, they progressively distance themselves from the technology itself in order to analyze uses, real needs, and existing alternatives.

This structured confrontation helps avoid projects that are focused only on the solution.

Structure thinking through an entrepreneurial methodology

NEO guides project leaders through the major stages of Business Design: legitimacy of the problem, desirability, acceptability, and feasibility. Methodological alerts highlight fragile areas of the project and encourage more rigorous thinking.

In doing so, project leaders discover an entrepreneurial project development method they can gradually make their own.

Develop an entrepreneurial mindset

Rather than providing ready-made answers, NEO asks structuring questions that force project leaders to make their assumptions, choices, and uncertainties explicit. This educational approach fosters active learning and gradually shifts their posture — from researcher or engineer focused on technology to project leader capable of arguing, deciding, and moving forward.

Visualize actual project progress

Progress indicators allow both the project leader and the support team to instantly visualize the state of progress on each key dimension. This clear overview helps identify gaps, prioritize next actions, and introduces a gamified dimension that encourages continued progress through the process.

As the reflection progresses, NEO automatically generates a structured project report including the value proposition, assumptions, business model components, and action paths. This document can be shared with support teams, used as a basis for discussion, or serve as pitch support within an incubation program.

THE BUSINESS DESIGN METHOD

Vianeo’s Business Design method, available exclusively through our tools, guides idea and technology leaders through five systemic and structuring stages. From initial exploration to business model validation, it helps transform an intention into a clear, aligned, credible innovation project that is ready for deployment.

LEGITIMACY

Identify the problem you are addressing with precision and demonstrate why you are legitimate in taking it on. Assess your internal resources, differentiating expertise, and strategic strengths. Make sure your starting point is solid and that you have the capabilities, skills, and infrastructure required to deliver a credible and differentiated response.

DESIRABILITY

Analyze the application scope of your project to identify personas whose needs are currently unmet or poorly addressed by existing solutions. Explore, analyze, and measure their expectations. Conduct exploratory interviews, validate your assumptions, and gather tangible evidence that a genuine value creation opportunity exists.

ACCEPTABILITY

Anticipate the impact of your innovation within the project ecosystem by mapping it. Assess the reactions of stakeholders and existing influencers, correlate identified needs with regulatory constraints and potential resistance, and identify adoption levers. Then adapt your approach to ensure smooth integration into the industrial, institutional, and competitive environment.

FEASIBILITY

Design a solution that is technically and operationally grounded in the needs identified during the desirability stage. Validate the robustness of your technology, the availability of required resources, and industrial feasibility. Secure development milestones by relying on the strategic partners identified during the acceptability stage. Define a realistic and optimized implementation plan.

VIABILITY

Structure a relevant and sustainable business model built on the four previous proofs of value. Clearly identify your product-market combinations, define a monetization strategy, and measure the financial impact of the project. Ensure that your value proposition creates a durable competitive advantage and that your activity can reach a stable and profitable financial balance.

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

“A great surprise, very intuitive. I especially appreciated its ability to reformulate, rephrase, and check understanding. The tool can accelerate project evaluation and is particularly relevant for developing innovation programs, especially for those focused on solutions rather than problems.”

ANTOINE C.
FIELD PROJECT MANAGER IN THE ENERGY SECTOR

“The depth of analysis and structuring make it possible to cover every aspect of an innovative idea and develop it to the point where it can be presented to the executive committee. The tool also helps empower teams while strengthening their engagement. It also provides real support for client presentation deliverables, especially pitches and assumptions.”

CAMILLE G.
CORPORATE INNOVATION MANAGER IN THE ENERGY SECTOR

“Its ease of use in conversational mode, combined with its ability to structure innovation projects, saves time, provides a clearer overall view, and helps better prepare presentations for decision-making committees, while benefiting from a complete methodological framework with relevant questions one might not have thought of alone.”

SONIA H.
BUSINESS UNIT MANAGER IN THE MOBILITY SECTOR

OUR BUSINESS CASES

IMT ALBI

A GROWING INFLUX OF PROJECTS CALLS FOR NEW SUPPORT LEVERS

IMT Mines Albi’s incubator welcomes a growing number of deeptech student entrepreneurs. In response to this momentum, the challenge is to maintain a demanding level of support while improving project visibility and monitoring.