Charles Demontigny and Alex Ratchev: innovation through laughter, pranks and community!
An April Fools’ joke that became a successful business. Two inseparable friends, plenty of Quebec humour and a French bulldog named Huguette, voted employee of the year: no, this is not a movie trailer. This is how QuébGPT was born—a chatbot that speaks only Québécois, conceived by Charles Demontigny and developed with Alex Ratchev, his lifelong friend, in the lively, bustling setting of Montréal Cowork.
Charles Demontigny has always known how to be bold, and Alex Ratchev cannot help following along. While the former has always been full of ideas, the latter loves bringing them to life.
“You have to keep an eye on them over the holidays,” says an amused Nathalie Dubreuil, a community facilitator. “They like pulling pranks,” adds Émilie Lamothe with a laugh. She knows them well and also works as a facilitator at Montréal Cowork.
When you open their office door, you discover, not without surprise, a life-size framed photo of the employee of the year: Huguette, an affectionate, courageous French bulldog full of joie de vivre. Huguette is the mascot, but above all, Charles Demontigny’s faithful four-legged companion.
Passion is good, but laughter might be even better for launching a business idea.
Charles and Alex are that inseparable duo who have known each other inside out since they were 13. Colourful personalities, they liven things up, bring their daily good cheer, constantly take part in Montréal Cowork activities, start “trends,” as Émilie puts it, and are an integral part of the coworking space’s DNA.
“Honestly, I think it would have been really hard to build something if we hadn’t had the whole community. Like, people around us, because we’re very sociable; we like that. If we’d been all alone at home, I don’t think it would have worked,” Charles shares.
Humour, Quebec poutine and a chatbot: the ingredients of a business model. The leading faces of QuébGPT, based at Montréal Cowork since 2023, Charles was the one who initially launched the company. QuébGPT, the Quebec chatbot, is above all a kind of question-and-answer exchange in a Québécois style that is a little “hick,” as he describes it, accompanied by references to Quebec culture.
For example: asking for a Ricardo-style poutine recipe, or writing an email to your mother when you are stuck in traffic: “Ah well, buddy, I’m sorry, but I’m gonna be late for supper. There’s a f...ing ton of traffic on the road...”.
This sets the tone and explains how it all began. “It was by joking, on April Fools’ Day, that it was the first AI agent trained here in Quebec in the comments section of the Journal de Montréal or TVA Nouvelles,” Charles recalls. He then received 12,000 requests in one weekend and appeared on a podcast.
That April Fools’ joke marked a happy, unexpected turning point: the arrival of QuebGPT, inspired in particular by Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, who envisioned a future where everyone could have their own personalized OpenAI.
Chance? Good timing? No doubt, but it is also important to understand how much it owes to personality, friendship, a healthy dose of humour, experience and a good work environment.
From individual journeys to an entrepreneurial adventure
As a child actor, Charles appeared in commercials and performed in various productions between the ages of 5 and 12. At the same time, he taught himself computing. “I had a computer when I was 8,” he recalls. It was a passion inherited from his father, who ran a software company in the late 1990s and the 2000s. “I see it as a relay: my father helped businesses computerize, and today I help them move to AI,” he explains.
To pay for his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics, he also spent 10 years as a professional poker player. It was a superb learning experience for developing skills and knowledge useful to his future business.
“Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Even when you play well, you can lose because there’s always an element of luck in decisions. It ‘grounded’ him: he learned not to take it too personally. When something doesn’t work, you adapt, adjust and try again,” says Alex, who has watched him over all these years.
Yet school was not always easy—far from it. With no small amount of pride, Charles explains in hindsight how he managed to bounce back despite difficulties and doubts. “I didn’t know where I was going. Being able to go back to school and then come out with a master’s degree, I turned that failure into something that propelled me beyond it,” he explains.
2015–2016 also marked the “breaking-in” of many deep learning models, in other words, the emergence of artificial intelligence. With his master’s degree in economics in hand, his unconventional traits and unique experience converged towards the business idea he is known for today.
Six months after launching QuebGPT’s pivot, Charles and Alex cycled around Iceland. Accustomed to travelling together, this physical and mental experience reinforced the idea of working together temporarily for a month—only for them to end up never parting professionally, just as they had remained friends for so many years.
True free spirits, they have a keen sense of community. “Sociable, funny and good at bringing people together, they are a pillar of Montréal Cowork and a good example of people who live as part of a community,” Émilie observes. The feeling is mutual for the two entrepreneurs. “Montréal Cowork is the glue that makes us want to get up and go to work,” Charles concludes.
Article credit: Hélène Lequitte