French artificial intelligence startup Mistral has struck a multimillion-euro deal with AFP to incorporate thousands of newswire articles into its chatbot, casting the partnership as a European bulwark against fact-checking attacks by Silicon Valley rivals.
The partnership between AFP, one of the world's oldest news organizations, and Mistral is a first for the Paris-based companies and comes at a time when many media groups are deciding whether to strike licenses with artificial intelligence companies Agreement or take legal action for alleged copyright infringement.
The deal announced on Thursday will deliver more than 2,000 AFP news articles daily in six languages to Mistral's chatbot Le Chat, allowing users to answer questions and help draft documents.
Arthur Mensch, co-founder and chief executive of Mistral, told the Financial Times: “It’s important to have agreements like this to get well-founded information with verified content.”
The companies see the deal as a means to ensure that Mistral's chatbot is based on verifiable information. Meanwhile, ahead of the incoming inauguration of US President Donald Trump, Mehta and Elon Musk's X have scrapped content moderation and declared "free speech" supreme.
"It tells us that Europe must unite to defend its booming technology sector," Mensch said of recent moves by Silicon Valley rivals.
Fabrice Fries, chief executive of AFP, told the Financial Times: "'Freedom of speech' has been largely used as a weapon against Europe, with big tech companies launching a campaign against European regulation "In the current context, this kind of deal just shows that AI players are betting on independent, fact-based professional journalism."
On Wednesday, Google announced a similar deal with its long-time search engine partner The Associated Press to display newswire feeds in its Gemini AI app.
Last June, Mistral raised €600 million in new funding at a €6 billion valuation, making it Europe's best-known artificial intelligence company and the only one on the continent making an AI comparable to OpenAI, Anthropic and Elon Musk. Startups that compete with large-scale language models such as xAI.
Mistral offers a cooperation model that is "more open" and "shares value more evenly" than its U.S. rivals, Mensch said.
Frith said AFP had discussed licensing deals with several AI companies in recent months, "but only with Mistral did we feel this was a true partnership and not just a sales agreement."
The commercial terms of Mistral's deal with AFP were not disclosed for several years. But unlike similar agreements between OpenAI in the U.S. and other media groups, Frith said the agreement "is not a one-time settlement" for data used to train large language models.
OpenAI has struck content deals with media groups including News Corp, Axel Springer and the Financial Times. On Wednesday, the San Francisco-based organization led by Sam Altman said it would fund four new local U.S. newsrooms for online publisher Axios and feed the output into ChatGPT.
Dealing with artificial intelligence companies "remains an open battle," said Fries, who is closely watching the U.S. legal case between OpenAI and The New York Times over copyright infringement claims that will provide a new perspective on the work's value. precedent. Publisher of the AI Model Group.
For AFP, the Mistral deal also provides an opportunity to make up for lost revenue that will be lost as its fact-checking contract with Meta expires.
The US social media group said last week it planned to move to community-based fact-checking in the US. AFP has 150 journalists conducting fact-checking for Meta, according to Frith.
In 2024, AFP earned about 20 million euros from technology platforms, including fact-checking on platforms such as Meta and content licensing agreements with platforms such as Google, accounting for about 10% of its commercial revenue last year.
"It is now clear that this revenue segment that has helped us grow and show profits over the past seven years is at risk," Frith said. "We clearly need to look for new technology players as a revenue source, and artificial intelligence players that can replace platforms."