Mistral signs deal with AFP to offer up-to-date answers in Le Chat

Just a day after Google soaked in ink contract with the Associated Press, Mistral is too announcing content agreement with Agence France-Presse (AFP) to improve the accuracy of responses in A catMistral’s chatbot product.

This is the first deal of its kind for the Paris-based artificial intelligence company. And this shows that Mistral does not want to be considered “only” a manufacturer of basic models.

It also wants to build attractive products, starting with Le Chat. From what I hear, the company is also working on dedicated apps to access Le Chat and better compete with ChatGPT or Claude.

In the future, Le Chat will be able to include AFP’s daily production of stories. And considering that AFP is one of the largest news agencies in the world, that represents a significant amount of text — about 2,300 stories per day in six languages ​​(Arabic, English, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish).

Le Chat will be able to search the entire AFP archive since 1983. However, photos and videos are not part of this multi-year deal. As a reminder, Mistral focuses on large language models and does not offer models for image generation. Image generation in Le Chat is handled by Flux Pro from Black Forest Labs.

OpenAI leads the way when it comes to content offerings. The creator of ChatGPT has signed partnerships with AP, Axel Springer, Condé Nast, El País, Financial Times, Le Monde and others. It will be interesting to see if Mistral has more meaningful partnerships in the works.

“We believe we are improving accuracy [Le Chat’s] The answers are a key step in deploying our technology, especially for businesses,” Mistral co-founder and CEO Arthur Mensch said in a statement. “Through this partnership, we provide our customers with a unique multicultural and multilingual alternative.”

Today’s partnership is also a first for AFP. And it couldn’t have come at a better time, as Meta ended its third-party fact-checking program just last week. AFP was one of the key partners in Meta’s fact-checking system. “Through this partnership, AFP is further diversifying its revenue streams,” AFP President and Chief Executive Officer Fabrice Fries said in a statement.

Although the artificial intelligence industry wants to improve its products with these arrangements, there are two side effects that could be considered additional benefits. First, AI companies can position themselves as (financial) allies of news organizations. Second, these partnerships protect them from potential copyright infringement lawsuits.