French AI startup Mistral launches Le Chat mobile app for iPhone, Android — can it take enterprise eyes off DeepSeek? - Related to chinese, can, discovers, mobile, iphone,

French AI startup Mistral launches Le Chat mobile app for iPhone, Android — can it take enterprise eyes off DeepSeek?

While the AI market has in recent days seemed to collapse around DeepSeek and OpenAI, there are of course many other teams of brilliant engineers fielding large language models (LLMs) that are worth a look as customers and enterprises seek to use the latest and greatest.

Take Mistral AI, the French startup that made headlines even before it launched with a record-setting seed funding round of $640 million, and which has quietly been training and releasing a mix of open-source and proprietary models for consumers and enterprises.

Even as the rise of new reasoning models and agents have dominated the AI landscape, Mistral is still positioning itself as a viable alternative to OpenAI’s signature chatbot ChatGPT and DeepSeek’s hit mobile app, especially for those concerned with data privacy and security.

Today, Mistral finally launched its own free, mobile version of its chatbot Le Chat for iOS and Android, as well as a new Enterprise tier for private infrastructure, and a Pro plan at $[website] per month. The move implies that Mistral AI is making a concerted push to convince companies there are worthwhile alternatives to DeepSeek and OpenAI.

Mistral’s Le Chat offers business leaders an AI tool that integrates with enterprise environments, operates with high-speed performance and — importantly for some consumers — does not send user data to China, unlike DeepSeek.

Mistral targets both consumers and enterprises with savvy new releases.

Mistral AI’s latest rollout comes at a time when enterprises are increasingly evaluating AI partners based on data privacy, security and deployment flexibility.

The launch of Le Chat’s Enterprise tier, which allows businesses to deploy the assistant on private infrastructure, SaaS or virtual private cloud (VPC), indicates that Mistral is targeting the same corporate clients who may have previously considered OpenAI’s GPT-4 or Anthropic’s Claude, but want more control over their data and models.

Mistral’s strategy mirrors a recent move by DeepSeek, the Chinese AI corporation that released DeepSeek-R1, a powerful reasoning model that offers capabilities and performance similar to OpenAI’s “o” series of models (o1, o1-mini and o3-mini out now, with o3 full soon to follow) but at a fraction of the lost (30 times less expensive for enterprise customers than OpenAI o1).

However, DeepSeek’s expansion has been met in the West with privacy and security concerns related to China’s data retention and censorship laws. Some analysts have raised questions about whether AI models developed by Chinese firms could be subject to Beijing’s data access regulations, prompting enterprises to proceed cautiously when integrating such systems.

Mistral AI is betting that Le Chat’s performance advantages will also help it stand out.

The mobile app is powered by the enterprise’s latest low-latency AI models, which, Mistral says, enable “flash answers” — a feature that generates responses at speeds of up to 1,000 words per second.

Beyond speed, Le Chat differentiates itself by integrating real-time web search and sourcing from journalistic and social media platforms, allowing for fact-grounded responses rather than relying solely on pre-trained knowledge.

This makes Le Chat a potential alternative for businesses that require more up-to-date, evidence-based AI insights rather than static model training data.

Code interpreter : Allows in-place execution of scripts, scientific computations and data visualization.

: Allows in-place execution of scripts, scientific computations and data visualization. OCR and document processing : Industry-grade optical character recognition (OCR) for PDFs, spreadsheets and even complex or low-quality images.

: Industry-grade optical character recognition (OCR) for PDFs, spreadsheets and even complex or low-quality images. Image generation: Powered by Black Forest Labs’ Flux Ultra, enabling photorealistic content creation.

Undercutting OpenAI and Anthropic on price.

Mistral AI is also taking a different approach to pricing compared to competitors.

While OpenAI charges $20 per month for ChatGPT Plus and Anthropic’s Claude has varying pricing based on token limits, Le Chat’s Pro plan starts at $[website] per month.

Additionally, most elements — including the latest models, document uploads and even image generation — are free, with limits only kicking in for power clients.

For businesses looking at team-wide adoption, Le Chat Team provides priority support, unified billing and integration credits, while Enterprise deployments allow companies to use their own custom AI models tailored to their organization’s needs.

I downloaded and tested Mistral’s Le Chat iOS app on my iPhone briefly while writing and editing this piece, and compared some of my prompts to my default AI assistant, OpenAI’s ChatGPT powered by GPT-4o.

Le Chat was typically noticeably faster in its outputs than ChatGPT, but its Black Forest Labs Ultra model image generation capabilities were surprisingly not as adherent to my prompt as ChatGPT’s built-in connection to OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 image model, which is now 5 months old and hardly state-of-the-art anymore.

Also, OpenAI’s connectivity to web search provided richer diversity of findings than Le Chat, which defaulted to the AFP, a French yet English-language publishing news outlet and wire service that Mistral partnered with back in January 2025.

See some of my comparisons of Le Chat and ChatGPT below.

Le Chat’s launch underscores a broader industry shift: While OpenAI and Anthropic remain dominant players, enterprises are actively evaluating alternative AI providers that offer enhanced pricing, more flexible deployment options and clearer data privacy guarantees.

With DeepSeek facing scrutiny over its Chinese data links and OpenAI dealing with ongoing enterprise adoption challenges, Mistral AI’s European positioning, fast performance and competitive pricing could make it an increasingly attractive choice for businesses looking to integrate AI assistants into their workflows.

For companies weighing their AI options, the latest iteration of Le Chat is a signal that viable [website], non-Chinese AI alternatives are beginning to emerge — and it’s clear Mistral AI intends to be at the forefront of that shift.

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Mistral's AI chatbot comes to iOS and Android - here's why you should try it

A little-known French startup firm is attempting to compete with the likes of ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot with its own AI chatbot. Known as Le Chat, Mistral's AI service has already been accessible as a website and is now aiming to make a splash with its new mobile apps.

Launched in April 2023, Mistral AI is a French artificial intelligence startup. Co-founded by former Meta employees Timothée Lacroix and Guillaume Lample and former DeepMind researcher Arthur Mensch, Mistral has developed and released several large language models (LLMs), both commercial and open source. Mistral's LLMs are accessible not only through websites and mobile apps but via APIs for third-party applications.

Also: Mistral AI says its Small 3 model is a local, open-source alternative to GPT-4o mini.

The Le Chat website works similarly to other AI sites. Beyond submitting your text-based questions and requests, you can upload a PDF or image file for analysis, tell it to generate an image, and ask it to interpret your code. Taking a page from ChatGPT, Le Chat can also work as a standard search engine.

But there's more. A Canvas feature helps you create documents, presentations, code, mockups, and other content. You can modify and then preview the content directly in place without having to submit new requests. Soon you'll also be able to use AI-powered agents to carry out your requested tasks on their own.

The basic version of Le Chat is free to use, with or without an account, however, paid plans are also in the mix. At $15 a month, a Pro subscription grants you unlimited access to Mistral's highest-performing models, an unlimited number of requests per day, and the ability to opt out of sharing your data. Starting at $25 per user per month, a Team plan designed for two or more people adds central management and dedicated support.

To supplement the website, Mistral launched a mobile Le Chat app this week. Designed for iPhone, iPad, and Android consumers, the app is simply and cleanly designed but still allows you to generate images, analyze your photos, and access a history of your previous chats.

Also: US sets AI safety aside in favor of 'AI dominance'

What makes Le Chat so special that it's worth using, either on the web or on your mobile device? In a news post from last November, Mistral touted several new powers.

The web search provides reports and citations so you can confirm the results. The Canvas tool is ideal for in-line editing and creating. Le Chat's analysis of documents and images that you upload is powered by Mistral's multimodal Pixtral Large, an LLM that at the time outperformed [website] Sonnet, [website] Pro, and GPT-4o. The image generation is powered by Black Forest Labs' Flux Pro for faster speed and efficiency over previous versions and rival generators.

Also: The best AI chatbots of 2025: ChatGPT, Copilot, and notable alternatives.

Mistral states that its open-source Le Chat assistant is powered by the world's fastest inference engines, capable of responding to your prompts with up to 1,000 words per second, says TechCrunch, which found it faster than ChatGPT's 4o model.

With ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, and now DeepSeek popular among PC and mobile clients, Mistral has its work cut out if it wants to compete with the major players. But with time and even more innovations, Le Chat may eke out its own top spot in the AI arena.

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Security firm discovers DeepSeek has 'direct links' to Chinese government servers

Just weeks into its new-found fame, Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is moving at breakneck speed, toppling competitors and sparking axis-tilting conversations about the virtues of open source software.

Also: US sets AI safety aside in favor of 'AI dominance'

However, numerous security concerns have surfaced about the organization, prompting private and government organizations to ban the use of DeepSeek. Here's what you need to know.

Founded by Liang Wenfeng in May 2023 (and thus not even two years old), the Chinese startup has challenged established AI companies with its open-source approach. , DeepSeek's edge may lie in the fact that it is funded only by High-Flyer, a hedge fund also run by Wenfeng, which gives the business a funding model that supports fast growth and research.

The startup made waves last month when it released the full version of R1, the business's open-source reasoning model that can outperform OpenAI's o1. Last week, App Store downloads of DeepSeek's AI assistant, which runs V3, a model DeepSeek released in December, topped ChatGPT, which had previously been the most downloaded free app. DeepSeek R1 climbed to the third spot overall on HuggingFace's Chatbot Arena, battling with several Gemini models and ChatGPT-4o, while releasing a promising new image model.

Also: Perplexity lets you try DeepSeek R1 without the security risk.

The firm's ability to create successful models by strategically optimizing older chips -- a result of the export ban on US-made chips, including Nvidia -- and distributing query loads across models for efficiency is impressive by industry standards.

Released in full on January 21st, R1 is DeepSeek's flagship reasoning model, which performs at or above OpenAI's lauded o1 model on several math, coding, and reasoning benchmarks.

Built on V3 and based on Alibaba's Qwen and Meta's Llama, what makes R1 interesting is that, unlike most other top models from tech giants, it's open source, meaning anyone can download and use it. That unveiled, DeepSeek has not disclosed R1's training dataset. So far, all other models it has released are also open source.

Also: I tested DeepSeek's R1 and V3 coding skills - and we're not all doomed (yet).

DeepSeek is cheaper than comparable US models. For reference, R1 API access starts at $[website] for a million tokens, a fraction of the $[website] that OpenAI charges for the equivalent tier.

DeepSeek claims in a company research paper that its V3 model, which can be compared to a standard chatbot model like Claude, cost $[website] million to train, a number that's circulated (and disputed) as the entire development cost of the model. As the AP reported, some lab experts believe the paper only refers to the final training run for V3, not its entire development cost (which would be a fraction of what tech giants have spent to build competitive models). Some experts suggest DeepSeek's costs don't include earlier infrastructure, R&D, data, and personnel costs.

One drawback that could impact the model's long-term competition with o1 and US-made alternatives is censorship. Chinese models often include blocks on certain subject matter, meaning that while they function comparably to other models, they may not answer some queries (see how DeepSeek's AI assistant responds to questions about Tiananmen Square and Taiwan here). As DeepSeek use increases, some are concerned its models' stringent Chinese guardrails and systemic biases could be embedded across all kinds of infrastructure.

You can access uncensored, US-based versions of DeepSeek through platforms like Perplexity, which have removed its censorship weights and run it on local servers to avoid security concerns.

Also: Is DeepSeek's new image model another win for cheaper AI?

In December, ZDNET's Tiernan Ray compared R1-Lite's ability to explain its chain of thought to that of o1, and the results were mixed. That presented, DeepSeek's AI assistant reveals its train of thought to the user during queries, a novel experience for many chatbot consumers given that ChatGPT does not externalize its reasoning.

Of course, all popular models come with red-teaming backgrounds, community guidelines, and content guardrails. However, at least at this stage, American-made chatbots are unlikely to refrain from answering queries about historical events.

Data privacy worries that have circulated on TikTok -- the Chinese-owned social media app now somewhat banned in the US -- are also cropping up around DeepSeek.

Also: ChatGPT's Deep Research just identified 20 jobs it will replace. Is yours on the list?

On Wednesday, Ivan Tsarynny, CEO of Feroot Security, told ABC that his firm had discovered "direct links to servers and to companies in China that are under control of the Chinese government," which he introduced they "have never seen in the past."

After decrypting some of DeepSeek's code, Feroot found hidden programming that can send user data -- including identifying information, queries, and online activity -- to China Mobile, a Chinese government-operated telecom corporation that has been banned from operating in the US since 2019 due to national security concerns.

On Thursday, NowSecure recommended organizations "forbid" the use of DeepSeek's mobile app after finding several flaws including unencrypted data (meaning anyone monitoring traffic can intercept it) and poor data storage.

Last week, research firm Wiz discovered that an internal DeepSeek database was publicly accessible "within minutes" of conducting a security check. The "completely open and unauthenticated" database contained chat histories, user API keys, and other sensitive data.

"More critically, the exposure allowed for full database control and potential privilege escalation within the DeepSeek environment, without any authentication or defense mechanism to the outside world," Wiz's investigation explains.

, which initially , though Wiz did not receive a response from DeepSeek, the database appeared to be taken down within 30 minutes of Wiz notifying the organization. It's unclear how long it was accessible or if any other entity discovered it before it was taken down.

Also: 'Humanity's Last Exam' benchmark is stumping top AI models - can you do any more effective?

The policy outlines that DeepSeek collects plenty of information, including but not limited to:

"your text or audio input, prompt, uploaded files, feedback, chat history, or other content that you provide to our model and Services"

"proof of identity or age, feedback or inquiries about your use of the Service," if you contact DeepSeek.

Also: Apple researchers reveal the secret sauce behind DeepSeek AI.

"customers need to be aware that any data shared with the platform could be subject to government access under China's cybersecurity laws, which mandate that companies provide access to data upon request by authorities," Adrianus Warmenhoven, a member of NordVPN's security advisory board, told ZDNET via email.

, the fact that R1 is open source means increased transparency, allowing individuals to inspect the model's source code for signs of privacy-related activity.

However, DeepSeek also released smaller versions of R1, which can be downloaded and run locally to avoid any concerns about data being sent back to the organization (as opposed to accessing the chatbot online).

Also: ChatGPT privacy tips: Two essential ways to limit the data you share with OpenAI.

All chatbots, including ChatGPT, collect some degree of user data when queried via the browser.

AI safety researchers have long been concerned that powerful open-source models could be applied in dangerous and unregulated ways once out in the wild. Tests by AI safety firm Chatterbox found DeepSeek R1 has "safety issues across the board."

Also: We're losing the battle against complexity, and AI may or may not help.

Even in varying degrees, US AI companies employ some kind of safety oversight team. DeepSeek has not publicized whether it has a safety research team, and has not responded to ZDNET's request for comment on the matter.

"Most companies will keep racing to build the strongest AI they can, irrespective of the risks, and will see enhanced algorithmic efficiency as a way to achieve higher performance faster," expressed Peter Slattery, a researcher on MIT's FutureTech team who led its Risk Repository project. "That leaves us even less time to address the safety, governance, and societal challenges that will come with increasingly advanced AI systems."

"DeepSeek's breakthrough in training efficiency also means we should soon expect to see a large number of local, specialized 'wrappers' -- apps built on top of DeepSeek R1 engine -- which will each introduce their own privacy risks, and which could each be misused if they fell into the wrong hands," added Ryan Fedasiuk, director of US AI governance at The Future Society, an AI policy nonprofit.

Some analysts note that DeepSeek's lower-lift compute model is more energy efficient than that of US AI giants.

"DeepSeek's new AI model likely does use less energy to train and run than larger competitors' models," noted Slattery. "However, I doubt this marks the start of a long-term trend in lower energy consumption. AI's power stems from data, algorithms, and compute -- which rely on ever-improving chips. When developers have previously found ways to be more efficient, they have typically reinvested those gains into making even bigger, more powerful models, rather than reducing overall energy usage."

"DeepSeek isn't the only AI corporation that has made extraordinary gains in computational efficiency. In recent months, [website] Anthropic and Google Gemini have boasted similar performance improvements," Fedasiuk stated.

Also: $450 and 19 hours is all it takes to rival OpenAI's o1-preview.

"DeepSeek's achievements are remarkable in that they seem to have independently engineered breakthroughs that promise to make large language models much more efficient and less expensive, sooner than many industry professionals were expecting -- but in a field as dynamic as AI, it's hard to predict just how long the firm will be able to bask in the limelight."

How will DeepSeek affect the AI industry?

R1's success highlights a sea change in AI that could empower smaller labs and researchers to create competitive models and diversify the options. For example, organizations without the funding or staff of OpenAI can download R1 and fine-tune it to compete with models like o1. Just before R1's release, researchers at UC Berkeley created an open-source model on par with o1-preview, an early version of o1, in just 19 hours and for roughly $450.

Given how exorbitant AI investment has become, many experts speculate that this development could burst the AI bubble (the stock market certainly panicked). Some see DeepSeek's success as debunking the thought that cutting-edge development means big models and spending. It also casts Stargate, a $500 billion infrastructure initiative spearheaded by several AI giants, in a new light, creating speculation around whether competitive AI requires the energy and scale of the initiative's proposed data centers.

Also: Anthropic offers $20,000 to whoever can jailbreak its new AI safety system.

DeepSeek's ascent comes at a critical time for Chinese-American tech relations, just days after the long-fought TikTok ban went into partial effect. Ironically, DeepSeek lays out in plain language the fodder for security concerns that the US struggled to prove about TikTok in its prolonged effort to enact the ban. The US Navy has already banned DeepSeek, and lawmakers are trying to ban the app from all government devices.

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