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

Just one day after Google struck a deal with The Associated Press, Mistral has done so announced a content agreement with Newswire Agence France-Presse (AFP) to improve the accuracy of answers in Le ChatMistral’s chatbot.

This is the first deal of its kind for the Paris-based artificial intelligence company, and it indicates that Mistral does not want to be seen as “just” a basic model creator.

Going forward, Le Chat will be able to leverage AFP’s stories, and given that AFP is one of the largest news agencies in the world, 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 dating back to 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 image generation models. Image generation in Le Chat is handled by Schwarzwald Labs’ Flux Pro.

The AI ​​company also wants to build appealing products, starting with Le Chat. From what I’ve heard, the company is also working on dedicated apps that will let users access Le Chat and better compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude.

OpenAI has been a leader when it comes to content deals. The company has 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 content partnerships coming up.

“We believe that improving the accuracy of (Le Chat’s) responses is an important step in the implementation of our technology, especially for enterprises,” 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. It couldn’t have come at a better time, as Meta ended its third-party fact-checking program last week, and AFP was one of the key partners in Meta’s fact-checking system. “Through this partnership, AFP is further diversifying its sources of revenue,” AFP chairman and CEO Fabrice Fries said in a statement.

While the AI ​​industry seeks 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; and these partnerships protect them from potential copyright infringement claims.

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