Mistral AI is the Paris-based AI developer behind Le Chat, a competitor to ChatGPT and other popular AI chatbots. The French AI platform is one of the globe’s top 10 most popular AI tools according to The AI “Big Bang” 2025 Study from One Little Web, and is generally considered the top AI model coming out of Europe at the moment. Mistral AI bills itself as a European alternative to U.S. AI offerings from the likes of OpenAI, Google, and others.
In my use of Mistral’s Le Chat, I found it to be quick, and therefore, a pleasure to use and, in many instances, equally as capable as some better-known AI tools created in the U.S.
Here’s everything educators need to know about Mistral AI and its potential applications for teaching.
What Is Mistral?
Mistral is a French AI company formed in 2023 by Arthur Mensch, Guillaume Lample, and Timothée Lacroix. The company seeks to compete with U.S. and Chinese tech companies in the still burgeoning AI field.
Mistral works very similarly to ChatGPT or Bard, but in my use, it seems to give responses a bit faster, and is trained in French and other languages beyond English. The company has received a lot of fanfare in its native country, and French President Emmanuel Macron has actively helped rally support for Mistral. The company does have ties to American tech, however, as its founders worked for U.S. companies: Mensch is a former employee of Google DeepMind, while Lample and Lacroix both worked at Meta. The three founders have become France’s first AI billionaires.
How Much Does Mistral Cost?
Le Chat is free to use on Mistral’s homepage. You simply navigate to Mistral.AI and can start chatting.
To store past conversations, however, you need to create an account. You can also subscribe to the Pro version for $15 per month, the Team version for $25 per month, or the Enterprise version, which requires contacting the company for a price quote. These subscription tiers offer various levels of access to more advanced models.
What Ways Can Mistral AI Be Used To Teach?
Mistral’s Le Chat can be used to help educators in many of the ways that have become common in recent years. I was able to get it to generate decent lesson plans and quizzes that, with some small tweaks, would be high-quality enough to use in my classes.
Mistral can also perform translations and simplify, summarize, and explain text, as well as offer detailed explanations on various topics. It also works as a search engine alternative and does this all really fast—as fast or faster than any other AI tool I’ve used.
Beyond these features, Mistral offers a good opportunity for a larger discussion around AI literacy and ethics. You might discuss with your students the international competition between AI producers in various companies. Does it matter if an AI tool is based in France, China, or the U.S.? Why or why not? These questions can lead to larger discussions around AI ethics and what happens when powerful technology is in the hands of one country and/or proliferates widely among others.
How Does Mistral Compare To Other AI Tools?
The free version of Mistral matches up pretty well against other popular AI chatbots. It has fewer modes than Gemini or ChatGPT, but for straightforward questions, it was faster in my experience and just as good.
While I didn’t compare it to ChatGPT or other tools on deep-dive research questions, on simple “Can you explain X to me?" questions, it did just as well and arguably a little better than ChatGPT because its summaries tend to be shorter and more to the point.
Bottom Line: Should Educators Use Mistral AI?
Yes. However, at this point AI tools are becoming a little like smartphones or cars in that many of them do pretty much the same thing in most use cases, and which one you use is largely a matter of personal preference.
Mistral is fast, which makes it particularly good as a search engine alternative, and educators who are AI power users will definitely want to add it to their list. Others may feel more comfortable sticking with an AI app with which they’re already familiar. However, with various U.S. tech industry leaders sometimes seemingly competing to see who can be the worst human, some users will see Mistral as a welcome alternative.
