PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Pierre-Yves Oudeyer

Also known as P Y Oudeyer, P.-Y. Oudeyer, Pierre‐Yves Oudeyer

Pierre-Yves Oudeyer is a research director at Inria whose work connects artificial intelligence, autonomous learning, curiosity and robotics. He studied computer science at École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, completed a doctorate at Université Paris VI, and worked at Sony Computer Science Laboratory. The Flowers team explored curiosity-driven robot learning and language, and he received the 2018 Prix Inria–Académie des sciences du jeune chercheur. In 2025, he and his coauthors published MAGELLAN to help language-model agents estimate learning progress and choose goals. As of October 2026, he heads the Flowers team at Inria.

Timeline

  1. 1997–2003

    Studying computer science

    At École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, he studies computer science from 1997 to 2000 and completes a doctorate in computer science at Université Paris VI in 2003.

  2. 1999–2007

    Research at Sony CSL

    At Sony Computer Science Laboratory in Paris, he works as a permanent researcher from 1999 to 2007.

  3. 2009

    An ERC Starting Grant

    In 2009, he receives an ERC Starting Grant for EXPLORERS, a developmental-robotics research project.

  4. 2011–2012

    Robots that learn language

    At Fondation Cartier, the Ergo-Robots installation lets robots explore their environment, learn skills and invent a language from October 2011 to March 2012. In 2012, he and Clément Moulin-Frier study curiosity-driven phonetic learning with a realistic vocal-tract model.

  5. 2018

    A young-researcher prize

    In 2018, he receives the Prix Inria–Académie des sciences du jeune chercheur.

  6. September 2021–June 2022

    Visiting Microsoft Research

    At Microsoft Research Montreal, he serves as a research visitor from September 2021 to June 2022.

  7. 2025

    Teaching LLM agents to choose goals

    In 2025, he and his coauthors introduce MAGELLAN, a framework that helps LLM agents predict learning progress and prioritize goals in large, changing goal spaces. The experiments show improved learning-progress prediction and goal prioritization.

  8. As of October 2026

    Research director at Inria

    As of October 2026, he is a research director at the Inria Center of the University of Bordeaux and heads the Flowers team. He studies lifelong autonomous learning and the self-organization of behavioral, cognitive and language structures.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Pierre-Yves Oudeyer yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Biographie | Pierre-Yves Oudeyer - Chercheur Robotique futura-sciences.com. Checked 15 October 2026.
  2. Short Bio – Pierre-Yves Oudeyer pyoudeyer.com. Checked 15 October 2026.
  3. Les Prix Inria 2018 récompensent notamment Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, pionnier de la « curiosité artificielle » — ActuIA actuia.com. Checked 15 October 2026.
  4. Ergo-Robots - Flowers AI & CogSci Lab flowers.inria.fr. Checked 15 October 2026.
  5. FLOWERS - 2012 - Rapport annuel d'activité radar.inria.fr. Checked 15 October 2026.
  6. MAGELLAN: Metacognitive predictions of learning progress guide autotelic LLM agents in large goal spaces arxiv.org. Checked 15 October 2026.
  7. Pierre-Yves Oudeyer – Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Cognitive Science pyoudeyer.com. Checked 15 October 2026.