Discover the BoursoLive webinar: Involving individual shareholders in the promises of AI

Laurent Grassin (Host): Hello everyone! Thank you for joining us for this final web conference of the first day of Boursolive. We are going to spend the next half hour with Air Liquide, a favorite stock among individual investors. We’ll look at how artificial intelligence is being integrated into an industrial group that is more than a century old, and what that practically changes in its various fields of business, innovation, and customer relations. Above all, we’ll discuss with my two guests how this transformation will create growth and long-term value, and how Air Liquide plans to involve individual shareholders in this new chapter of its history, given that they have always occupied a special place in the group.

To talk about this with me today, I am pleased to welcome to the studio Anne-Sophie Richard, Director of Individual Investor Relations at Air Liquide. Hello, Anne-Sophie.

Anne-Sophie Richard: Hello, Laurent.

 Laurent Grassin: And by her side is Amaury de Menonville, Director of the AI Acceleration program at Air Liquide. Hello, Amaury.

Amaury de Menonville: Hello, Laurent.

Laurent Grassin: Air Liquide's activity, even before we talk about AI, is always interesting and important to recall—both the diversity and depth of its business models. As I said, it’s a star stock for retail investors, so many know it, but for those who might be discovering the company for the first time, could you remind us what Air Liquide does across its different dimensions?

Anne-Sophie Richard: Absolutely. Indeed, Air Liquide is generally known for being a "good father" style stock, but its actual business model is less understood. So, I suggest we take a quick look at it. Air Liquide is one of the world leaders in the manufacturing and distribution of gases for industry and healthcare. It is a group that achieved nearly 27 billion euros in revenue at the end of 2025, with nearly 65,000 employees across more than 60 countries. So, it has a truly strong international presence.

To go into more detail about what Air Liquide practically does, since its gases are found in everyday life across a multitude of uses, I suggest looking at our four main business branches.

The first and main branch is what we call "Large Industries." This is the industrial core, the heart of the reactor, so to speak. The group builds actual plants right next to our large industrial customers who need such high volumes of gas for their own production that we build these facilities to supply them directly with oxygen, nitrogen, or hydrogen. We supply these gases through pipelines; Air Liquide owns more than 10,000 kilometers of pipelines worldwide. These customers—a few hundred of them—are primarily in chemistry, refining, and steelmaking. This is the core of our business.

Surrounding Large Industries, we have "Industrial Merchant." This is where you encounter Air Liquide in daily life because we deliver gas in a lighter form—either through smaller storage tanks or in cylinders—to highly diverse customers worldwide. We have more than 2 million Industrial Merchant customers. They include artisanal welders, construction companies, the food industry (to flash-freeze food products), soda bottlers, and the glass industry. This immense diversity of customers spread across the globe makes our business highly resilient.

Our third branch is Healthcare. Here we manufacture and deliver medical oxygen to hospitals. This activity has expanded and diversified significantly, particularly in home care for patients suffering from respiratory conditions or other chronic illnesses like diabetes.

Finally, we have Electronics, which we will discuss next in relation to AI. Electronics accounts for nearly 10% of our revenue and is currently experiencing impressive growth, driven by the manufacturing of semiconductors, for which Air Liquide produces and delivers ultra-high purity gases.

Laurent Grassin: Can you tell me more about that? A major agreement was recently announced with SK Hynix, the South Korean semiconductor giant. How will Air Liquide provide essential solutions or products for the manufacturing of AI?

Anne-Sophie Richard: Absolutely. Air Liquide is a company that is more than a century old—we will celebrate our 125th anniversary next year—but it has always succeeded in supporting major technological shifts. Today, we are supporting digital transformation on the industrial side. To develop AI, you need semiconductors, which are found in our screens, computers, smartphones, servers, and data processors. To manufacture these semiconductors, industries need ultra-pure, highly specific carrier gases that Air Liquide can produce and deliver, particularly in Asia. We have announced several major investments in Asia recently: we acquired DIG Airgas in South Korea in early 2026, and we have also invested in Japan and with SK Hynix.

Laurent Grassin: So, Air Liquide is essential to digital transformation. Let’s turn to you, Amaury. Now that we’ve laid the foundations regarding the business branches, where do we stand today regarding the deployment of this new technology within Air Liquide?

Amaury de Menonville: Today, we are in a phase of large-scale deployment of AI. It is no longer just a test subject reserved for experts; it has become a daily tool for our employees. Air Liquide’s history with AI actually started 25 years ago. While the public has been talking about Large Language Models (LLMs) for about two or three years, traditional or classical AI is already deeply integrated into our operations. It helps us optimize our plants, our truck fleets, and our liquid supply chains.

The second phase is Generative AI, which everyone is talking about today, and which we have also embraced. The transformational potential of this new wave forced us to adjust our organization and our roadmap. We have structured this roadmap around three concrete pillars:

Creating new habits for all our employees: At the beginning of 2025, we decided to provide generative AI tools integrated directly into our office suites (emails, calendars, files) for all our employees.

Transforming our processes: Generative AI multiplies what we could do with traditional AI, allowing us to deeply overhaul certain core business processes.

Building a competitive advantage: This is a longer-term pillar. We aren't just talking about simple process improvement or productivity here, but exploiting the disruptive potential of generative AI, for example, by applying it to our Research & Development.

Laurent Grassin: Are there practical use cases you could share on how traditional and generative AI are changing things at Air Liquide?

Amaury de Menonville: Sure. Let’s look at three examples in different areas. In our core operations first, AI is highly operational. We have a system of tools that allows us to analyze the past consumption of our customers to forecast future demand. This helps us plan how much we need to produce, optimize which plants we need to run, and determine the most efficient delivery routes for our trucks, taking into account real-world variables like production capacity, production hazards, and volatile energy costs.

In healthcare, where we support about 2 million patients, AI has very human applications. For patients suffering from sleep apnea, we use AI to detect whose adherence to their treatment is dropping. This allows our healthcare professionals to step in personally at the right time to support them. We monitor this actively through data.

Regarding generative AI, still in healthcare, it supports our operators in call centers to help them answer customer and patient questions more effectively, improving the overall user experience.

Finally, in R&D, generative AI has completely shaken up the innovation cycle. We are moving away from pure trial-and-error. AI acts as a super assistant, allowing our researchers to process millions of data points and predict the properties of certain materials before even manufacturing them in the lab. This considerably reduces innovation time. Innovation is in our DNA—we are proud to still be among the top 50 most innovative European companies—and we partner with the best, notably holding an AI research chair with the École Normale Supérieure to stay at the cutting edge.

Laurent Grassin: Let's discuss the return on investment. Retail investors often ask: companies are spending heavily on AI, but what is it actually bringing in? How do you choose the best use cases, and how do you ensure they meet your targets?

Amaury de Menonville: That is an excellent question because, in my view, this is the trap of AI today. Wanting to put it everywhere because of the hype or the "wow effect" leads to dispersion and disappointing returns. At Air Liquide, our philosophy is clear: we avoid spreading resources too thin. We focus 80% of our resources and AI investments on our core business: industry, sales, and healthcare services.

Within these fields, we have a clear governance system. Projects must be driven by the business units, not by the IT department. The business side must define the need and lead the transformation. We also require high-level sponsorship—either at the Executive Committee (Comex) level or Comex minus one.

Secondly, before any large-scale deployment, we evaluate the projected benefits—whether it's reducing energy consumption, saving time on complex tasks, or increasing sales. The business sponsor commits to these targets, which are then tracked through standard group performance metrics.

Finally, we focus heavily on replicability. We avoid isolated, small-scale projects that meet a specific local need but cannot be scaled globally across the group, as those are costly and yield low impact. We focus on where we can generate the most value.

Laurent Grassin: Have you already stopped projects that didn't meet expectations?

 Amaury de Menonville: Yes, absolutely. We have a fast-paced rhythm with several phases where we invest gradually as our understanding matures. We stop about 20% to 30% of projects early on. I think it is essential to force yourself to stop projects when necessary. The main key to success is to remain agile and avoid dogmatism, because this technology evolves so quickly that you must be ready to pivot or pause.

Laurent Grassin: This brings us back to the relationship with individual shareholders. Anne-Sophie, individual shareholders are part of the group's history—representing nearly 1 million retail investors today, which is about 33% of the group's capital. This is quite unique for the CAC 40. How do you involve them in this technological shift? Do they ask questions about AI?

Anne-Sophie Richard: Yes, individual shareholders are truly part of our DNA. We grew from 24 shareholders in 1902 to nearly 1 million today. They are extremely loyal, often holding and transferring their shares across generations. This loyalty relies on two things: a resilient business model and a highly attractive shareholder policy that we have maintained for decades.

This policy is based on two pillars: the loyalty bonus and free share attributions. To benefit from the loyalty bonus, you must register your shares under the "nominative" form (either directly with Air Liquide or via your bank in a PEA account). After two full calendar years of ownership, you receive a 10% increase in dividends and a 10% increase in the number of free shares attributed. Given that Air Liquide has never lowered its nominal dividend, this is a highly effective way to grow a portfolio over time.

The second pillar is the regular attribution of free shares, which we have done for over 30 years, generally every two years. The last attribution took place a couple of weeks ago, in early June. Everyone benefits from this: it’s one free share for every 10 shares held. If you qualify for the loyalty bonus, you get an extra 10% on top of that. For example, if you hold 100 shares, you receive 10 free shares, plus one extra share, for a total of 11 free shares. This creates a powerful compounding "snowball effect" over the long term.

You can also buy shares directly through our dedicated website, deveniractionnaire.airliquide.com. We’ve observed that about 10% of visitors to this site end up opening an account, which is a great conversion rate. On this site, we have also set up investment simulators so people can look at historical returns.

Laurent Grassin: Over the long term, is Air Liquide a good investment compared to a standard savings account?

Anne-Sophie Richard: A few figures speak louder than a long speech. If you look at the financial performance chart on screen: if you had invested 100 euros in Air Liquide shares 5 years ago, with dividends reinvested and taking into account free shares, that investment would be worth 160 euros today. Over 10 years, it would be worth 300 euros. And over 20 years, those 100 euros would have multiplied by more than eight, reaching 819.5 euros. So yes, it is definitely better than a standard savings account (Livret A). We always say: diversify, keep a savings account for short-term needs, but stock investments like Air Liquide are excellent for the long term.

Laurent Grassin: To conclude, what would you say to convince an individual investor to join this adventure today, specifically one that is now enriched by AI? Amaury, let's start with you.

Amaury de Menonville: For large industrial groups like ours, where data culture and optimization are already part of the DNA, the new waves of generative AI act as a powerful multiplier. We see an impressive potential for added value because the foundations are already securely in place within our corporate culture and processes.

Anne-Sophie Richard: I would add that it is vital for the group to capture this AI wave through our industrial and semiconductor business, because it also allows us to connect with a new generation of shareholders. Alongside our historically loyal investors, we see a new wave of young investors entering the market. Showing them that Air Liquide is at the heart of AI development is a way to prove that the company is sustainable and future-proof. In a way, Air Liquide is like an ETF all on its own because we cover so many different sectors and geographical areas, making it a very solid and winning bet for young investors over the long run.

Laurent Grassin: It's a great concluding word: a solid placement for young investors. Thank you both for explaining so clearly how AI is transforming the group, and how your shareholder policy remains a cornerstone of Air Liquide. Thank you, Anne-Sophie, and thank you, Amaury. That concludes our first day of Boursolive. Make sure to tune in tomorrow for another rich program of conferences focusing on AI and investment. Thank you very much, and see you soon!