# Mistral AI

> A French company that builds AI language models, many of them with open weights.

- Level: Basic
- Topics: Tech companies, AI
- URL: https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/mistral-ai/
- In Spanish: [Mistral AI](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/es/mistral-ai/)

**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.

## An analogy

A bakery that sells bread at the counter but also publishes some of its recipes. You can buy a loaf ready to eat, or take a recipe home and bake it in your own oven.

## 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.

## Go deeper

- [About Mistral AI (official site)](https://mistral.ai/about)
- [Mistral AI documentation](https://docs.mistral.ai/)
- [Mistral AI on Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistral_AI)

## Related terms

- [Google](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/google/): The search company that gives most products away and makes its money on ads.
- [Meta](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/meta/): The company behind Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, paid for by advertising.
- [Artificial intelligence](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/artificial-intelligence/): Getting computers to do things that, until recently, only people could do.
- [Open-weights models](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/open-weights-models/): AI models whose trained numbers anyone can download and run on their own machines.
- [Server](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/server/): A computer whose job is to answer requests from other computers, all day, every day.
- [API](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/api/): The menu of things one program lets another program ask for.