Mistral AI
A French company that builds AI language models, many of them with open weights.
Mistral AI was founded in Paris in 2023 by Arthur Mensch, who came from Google DeepMind, and Guillaume Lample and Timothée Lacroix, who came from Meta's AI research lab. It builds large language models, the kind of AI behind chat assistants, and quickly became one of the best-known AI companies in Europe.
What made it stand out early was releasing models with open weights. Mistral 7B and Mixtral, among its first models, could be downloaded by anyone and run on their own computers or servers, under a permissive license. Mixtral popularized the mixture of experts design, where only part of the model is used for each word, which makes it cheaper to run. Mistral also offers more capable models that are available only through its paid service.
It makes money by selling access to its models through an API, by charging companies that want to run them on their own infrastructure, often for privacy or legal reasons, and through Le Chat, its chat assistant for people and businesses. Being European is part of its pitch: some governments and companies prefer a provider subject to European law.
Keep in mind
- Founded in Paris in 2023 by former DeepMind and Meta researchers.
- Releases many of its models with open weights that anyone can download.
- Its Mixtral models helped popularize the mixture of experts design.
- Earns money from its API, enterprise deployments and the Le Chat assistant.
