“There’s no point in running, you have to start on time.” This famous moral of Jean de la Fontaine has never been more false than in generative AI, where it is preferable to leave first, and run without looking back. Sam Altman understood this well. The first time when OpenAI switched from an “open source” philosophy to a “proprietary” line where its manufacturing secrets are protected. Then, when it joined forces with Microsoft, which has one of the best cloud and computing infrastructures in the world, before publishing ChatGPT, whose subscription formulas were a hit. It was also one of the lessons of its psychodrama last November, when its iconic founder was ousted from his post by a board of directors somewhat frightened by the speed at which its technologies were disseminating. Sam Altman won this battle brilliantly, and is therefore leading the race at a breakneck pace.
Mistral AI, a French nugget in the sector founded in April 2023, started far behind OpenAI. But it understood immediately that speed was essential to carve out a place in a market that was expected to reach $100 billion within four years, according to Sopra Steria Next. It has increased fundraising to support its growth – more than 600 million euros collected to date. And used several recipes proven by OpenAI. Monday February 26, the company led by Arthur Mensch made major announcements, including the launch of a new proprietary model, Mistral Large, its most powerful version. A hybrid approach with “open” models but also other more powerful “closed” models which consolidates its economic prospects. Mistral also announced a multi-year partnership with Microsoft, which will take a stake in the company and will distribute the LLM to its many cloud customers – again like OpenAI. The Frenchman has finally unveiled a new product, a chatbot called “Le Chat”, available in beta version and whose interface looks exactly like ChatGPT.
A mimicry with OpenAI which questions. Does it call into question, in the long term, its open source, European positioning and displayed as more ethical? “No, not at all”, responds to the newspaper The world Arthur Mensch, ensuring that the two formulas will coexist. Does the importance taken by Microsoft in its strategy and its capital undermine its status as a continental “unicorn”? No more, Mensch further assures, recalling that 75% of Mistral belongs to Europeans. Its model also remains the most multilingual and “Europeanized” to date among its mainly American competitors.
In reality, there is no about-face in these announcements. Above all, Mistral shows that he needs cash to hope, one day, to catch up with OpenAI. For now, the “Mistral Large”, released almost a year after GPT-4, remains inferior in terms of performance according to benchmark tests in the field. GPT-5 could push the boundaries again. The company headed by Sam Altman, 800 employees compared to around thirty for its French counterpart, is also already valued at more than 80 billion dollars. Or forty times more than Mistral. Its revenues could reach five billion dollars by the end of the year. The advantage of being the first to leave.