Hundreds of heads of states, general directors and non -profit organizations got here to Paris at the top of artificial intelligence. So far, the winner of the diplomatic and business parade this week is Mistral. In Business Lingo we might say that the French unicorn unit is experiencing a fire.
Mistral was one of the leading artificial intelligence corporations in Europe. Initially, it released impressive open models, and on the reverse of great interests in large language models, generative artificial intelligence and approach to Open Source managed to raise over $ 1 billion in little or no time.
However, his impact has disappeared over the past few months – especially because of what happened to LLM startups in Stawy.
OpenAi raised a total of $ 18 billion – and may soon pick up $ 40 billion more – While Antropic secured about $ 8 billion. At the same time, Chinese competitors, akin to Deepseek, have released open models that work higher than Mistral models.
Mistral couldn’t surpass deep people or overtake American competitors. But the peak of the AI motion got here in the right time to change the narrative around the French startup.
Now Mistral is serious about business.
“We went from a scientific company, which focused on creating the strongest laptop models then, to the company that now provides solutions to enterprises, i.e. non -standard applications, i.e. knowledge, employees’ performance,” Mistral’s “, Mistral’s co -founder and general director of Arthur Mensch said at the top.
Last week, the company released Le Chat on iOS and Android, an AI assistant designed for each consumers and corporate clients. This week, plainly he uses an unprecedented support campaign from the best decision -makers in France.
“Go and download Le Chat, which is made by Mistral, not chatgpt by OpenAi or something else,” said French President Emmanuel Macron in a television interview on Sunday evening. “We want them to invest in France and develop partnerships. When you download it, you help the European master, the French master. You create works here, but also increase it. And that’s what sovereignty is about. “
Le Chat is currently the most incessantly downloaded iOS application in France. However, the application does not likely start in other European markets. Currently, #66 Germany is clogged, and is not even mentioned in the 100 best applications in Spain, Italy and Great Britain
Renewed focus on the enterprise market
But Mistral does not assume his company for consumers’ success: for now he expects to earn money from corporate clients, and partly the event in Paris has turned into a presentation of Mistral to talk about the way it is doing on this front.
“We worked with France Travail [the national employment agency]. They now use our technologies to facilitate labor seekers and access job offers, “said Mensch in Television intelligence with TF1 on Sunday. “We also worked with Veolia to improve their performance [wastewater] Plants … so that they can understand what is happening in their plants at the moment. “
At the top of the AI John Elkann, president of Stellantis, he also announced a wide -ranging agreement with Mistral. “We are already doing many things together in our internal organization,” said Elkann.
By the end of the 12 months, the automotive manufacturer standing behind the brands of Peugeot, Citroën, Fiat and Jeep will update its mobile application to attach the owner’s textbook with an AI -driven Mistro -powered assistant. This is perfect for the first step in a larger relationship.
“We are moving forward, we think that drivers will ask for information and control the vehicle by technique of artificial intelligence, by connections to the network, but also embedded devices operating on the edges, which are much more efficient, that they are much more efficient, that it is much more efficient , which are much more efficient, which are more efficient, which are more efficient are very low delay that are controlled by the voice – said Mensch.
Mistral said it was too Partnership with HelsingA European defense company working on strike drones and electronic components in European fighters. In this case, Mistral is working on a latest “model of action in the language of vision”, which can probably operate on Edge devices.
At least for now, the company has several aces in skimming in terms of what it is able to provide with these clients of enterprises.
Mistral allows you to implement Le Chat in an environment with non -standard models and a custom user interface. If you’re employed in defense or banking, it might be essential to place AI assistant to be assumed. This is not currently possible in the case of ChatgPT Enterprise or Claude Enterprise.
Mistral also offers its border models via the API interface, which programmers can use in their very own applications.
In particular, Helsing Mistral proves that it is necessary to have the European AI champion. Let’s see now whether Mistral can persuade other European countries that they also can rely on European suppliers.
“Mistral is a chance of Europe and we only have one chance. Everyone has to work with Mistral, “said Nicolas Dufourcq, CEO of Bpifrance. “
It can be a clear jump compared to the revenues from 2024. According to many sources, Mistral had only tens of euros revenues in 2024.
There are other challenges due to the fragmentation of the European market. Several AI Action Summit participants were skeptical about the desire of other European countries to put a French player.
Meanwhile, the Paris company also wants to control its destiny when it comes to infrastructure. His CEO announced plans to invest “billions” in the AI data center. “We will do something and invest a few billion euros in a cluster that will be created in Essonne so that we can train even more efficient systems in a few months,” said Mensch.
The details are still thin from this front. It is not clear whether Mistral will cooperate with an external partner to finance the data center or collect a latest financing round to build it.
In the latter case, Mistral may derive inspiration BrainThe American company AI specializing in a quick conclusion, which is already working with Mistral to speed up the answers of the Chatbota, Le Chat product.
Most of the revenues of Cerebra currently come from Emirati AI Holding Company G42. As the competition goes between the USA and China, Mistral may look for the third path, independent of enormous American technology corporations and the Chinese capital. Can this mean looking for money in the Middle East?