Just one day after Google signed a deal with Associated Press, Mistral announced a content deal with news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) to improve the accuracy of answers on Mistral’s chatbot, Le Chat. did.
This is the first deal of its kind for the Paris-based artificial intelligence company and shows that Mistral does not want to be seen as “just” a basic model maker.
In the future, Le Chat will have access to AFP articles. Six languages (Arabic, English, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish), considering AFP is one of the largest news agencies in the world.
Le Chat will be able to query AFP’s entire archive dating back to 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.
AI companies also want to develop compelling products, starting with Le Chat. I’ve heard that the company is also working on a dedicated app for users to access Le Chat and make it more competitive with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude.
OpenAI has been at the forefront when it comes to content trading. The company has partnerships with AP, Axel Springer, Condé Nast, El Pais, Financial Times, Le Monde, and more. It will be interesting to see if Mistral pursues further content partnerships.
“Improving the accuracy of (Le Chat’s) responses is an important step in deploying our technology, especially for enterprises,” Arthur Mensch, co-founder and CEO of Mistral, said in a statement. I believe this is an important step.” “Through this partnership, we offer our clients a unique multicultural and multilingual option.”
Today’s partnership is also a first for AFP. This couldn’t have come at a better time, as Meta ended its third-party fact-checking program just last week, and 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 with these arrangements, there are two additional benefits and potential side effects. First, AI companies can position themselves as (economic) allies of news organizations. And these partnerships protect you from potential copyright infringement claims.
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