Home / Founders / Directory / Guillaume Bouchard
Guillaume Bouchard
Co-founder and CEO · Checkstep
Content moderation AI research
Bouchard is trying to give every online platform the kind of trust and safety tools that only the largest tech companies could once afford, a goal that new rules such as the EU Digital Services Act have made urgent.
“For the first time, I could work on a business idea that had a real impact on society and that everyone understood,” Guillaume Bouchard told the Center for Data Innovation in 2023. He is co-founder and CEO of Checkstep, a London, United Kingdom AI content moderation platform used by Trustpilot, JustGiving, and the Daily Mail.
A Research Career
Bouchard holds a PhD in applied mathematics and machine learning from INRIA in France and spent 12 years in research at Xerox and University College London, working on large predictive models and text understanding, according to Checkstep. He has authored more than 60 international publications and holds more than 50 US patents.
Bloomsbury AI and Facebook
He co-founded Bloomsbury AI, which Facebook bought in 2018, and then managed AI integrity work at Facebook in London. “Detecting online misinformation at Facebook was a great start, but maybe not in the right company,” he said in a Checkstep interview.
A Lockdown Side Project
Checkstep began as a side project during the first COVID-19 lockdown, aimed at harmful content online, and became a company when Bouchard saw online harm regulations coming. It raised £3 million led by Alea Capital Partners in 2026, and in November 2026 it took over the trust and safety business of Unitary.
