Mistral's Le Chat now rivals OpenAI’s ChatGPT with features like web search with citations, a canvas for ideation, advanced document and image analysis, image generation, and task agents for automation. Despite lacking some advanced voice and audio features found in competitors, Mistral is positioning itself as a leading AI model provider in Europe, especially with the influence of xAI founder Elon Musk on President Trump potentially pushing the EU to seek AI outside U.S. control.
Key takeaways:
- Mistral, a French startup, has launched updates including a new large foundational model named Pixtral Large and upgrades to its free web-based chatbot, Le Chat, making it a more serious competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
- Pixtral Large, a 124-billion-parameter model, excels in both text and visual data processing and demonstrates state-of-the-art performance across diverse benchmarks, ideal for tasks like chart interpretation, document analysis, and image understanding.
- Le Chat, now enhanced with new features powered by Pixtral Large, offers functionalities like web search with citations, a canvas for ideation, advanced document and image analysis, image generation, and task agents for automation.
- Despite its technical prowess, usage of Mistral’s models and API by large enterprises remain far behind those of U.S.-based companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Microsoft. However, with the influence of xAI founder Elon Musk on President Trump, it is likely that the EU will look to Mistral as a means of accessing AI outside the control of the U.S.