Pictet's main contribution to learning was his editing of the scientific section of the Bibliothèque Britannique (1796–1815), a publication devoted to the diffusion on the Continent of knowledge and arts produced in Great Britain.

His own scientific research focused on the fields of physical science, especially calorimetry, but also astronomy,[1] geology, meteorology and technology, especially chronometry and the manufacture of fine earthenware.

In 1796, he, his younger brother Charles, and his friend Frédéric-Guillaume Maurice began editing a monthly periodical entitled Bibliothèque Britannique, which carried translations of significant scientific papers published in English by scholars such as Davy, Hall, Herschel, Leslie, Playfair, Rumford and Wollaston.

In a letter to President George Washington in 1795, Thomas Jefferson wrote that he saw Pictet and his colleagues (including Saussure and Senebrier) as "standing foremost among the literati of Europe".

The couple had three daughters: Dorothée Marie Anne (1777–1841), who married the Swiss Councillor of State Isaac Vernet [fr], Caroline (1780–1841) and Albertine (1785–1834).