Mistral, often regarded as Europe's leading hope for AI, has announced a series of significant updates to its Le Chat AI assistant product. The company is releasing a mobile app on iOS and Android, allowing users to access Le Chat from their phones, as well as a major upgrade to the web interface.

In addition to these updates, Mistral is introducing a Pro tier for $14.99 per month, or €14.99 per month in Europe. This new tier offers access to the company's "highest-performing model," higher limits across the board, and the ability to opt out of sharing user data with Mistral.

Mistral develops its own large language models, including its flagship models Mistral Large and Pixtral Large, which are available for commercial use through an API or cloud partners like Azure AI Studio, Amazon Bedrock, and Google's Vertex AI. The company also releases open-weight models under the Apache 2.0 license. Mistral aims to position itself as a credible alternative to OpenAI or Anthropic, offering an AI assistant that competes directly with ChatGPT, Claude, Google Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot.

The mobile app features a chatbot interface, allowing users to query Mistral's AI model and ask follow-up questions in a simple conversation-like interface. Over the last few months, Le Chat has evolved to become a competent AI assistant, with features like web search with citations, image generation, and free-form canvas editing.

Mistral has also signed a deal with Agence France-Presse (AFP) to ground results with a reliable source of information. However, the mobile app does not include a voice mode, which may be a drawback for users who rely heavily on voice interactions with AI assistants.

So what sets Mistral apart from the competition? According to the company, it's not necessarily the quality of its models, but rather its product approach. Mistral claims that Le Chat runs on "the fastest inference engines on the planet" and can answer up to 1,000 words per second, making it faster than using ChatGPT with the 4o model. Additionally, Mistral's image generation capabilities are reportedly superior to those of ChatGPT or Grok, thanks to its reliance on Black Forest Labs' Flux Ultra model.

One of the key differentiators for Mistral is its enterprise solution, which allows businesses to deploy Le Chat in their environment with custom models and a custom user interface. This is particularly important for industries like defense or banking, where on-premise deployment is often a requirement. Currently, this is not possible with ChatGPT Enterprise or Claude Enterprise, giving Mistral a competitive edge.

As the AI assistant market continues to grow, Mistral's mobile app and Pro tier updates are a significant step forward for the company. With ChatGPT, DeepSeek, and Google Gemini currently holding top spots among the most downloaded iPhone apps in the U.S., Mistral will need to persuade AI enthusiasts to try its chatbot. Whether it can succeed in this competitive landscape remains to be seen.