Just one day after Google signed the deal with Associated Press, Mistral also announced a content deal with Agence France-Presse (AFP) to improve the accuracy of answers in Mistral's chatbot product, Le Chat.
This is the first deal of its kind for the Paris-based artificial intelligence company. And it shows that Mistral doesn't want to be seen as “just” a basic model maker.
The company also hopes to develop more attractive products starting with “Le Chat.” From what I've heard, the company is also working on a dedicated app to access Le Chat and better compete with ChatGPT and Claude.
From now on, Le Chat will be able to be used in AFP's daily article production. And given that AFP is one of the world's largest news agencies, we publish approximately 2,300 articles per day in six languages (Arabic, English, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish). It contains a huge amount of text.
Le Chat will now be able to query AFP's entire archive since 1983. However, photos and videos are not part of this multi-year agreement. As a reminder, Mistral focuses on large-scale language models and does not provide image generation models. Image generation in Le Chat is handled by Black Forest Labs' Flux Pro.
OpenAI has been at the forefront when it comes to content trading. The creators of ChatGPT have partnerships with AP, Axel Springer, Condé Nast, El País, Financial Times, Le Monde, and more. It will be interesting to see if Mistral pursues further content partnerships.
“We believe we can improve accuracy. [Le Chat’s] “Response is an important step in deploying our technology, especially for enterprises,” Mistral co-founder and CEO Arthur Mensch said in a statement. “Through this partnership, we offer our clients a unique multicultural and multilingual option.”
Today's partnership is also a first for AFP. And the announcement couldn't have come at a better time, as Meta just ended its third-party fact-checking program last week. AFP was one of the key partners in Meta's fact-checking system. “Through this partnership, AFP will further diversify its revenue streams,” AFP Chairman and CEO Fabrice Vries said in a statement.
While the AI industry aims to improve its products through these arrangements, there are two additional benefits and potential side effects. First, AI companies can position themselves as (economic) allies of news organizations. Second, these partnerships are protected from potential copyright infringement claims.