A few weeks following the initial release of Mistral’s AI assistant, Le Chat, the company announced to Le Parisien that it has achieved one million downloads. Notably, Le Chat quickly ascended to the top position for free downloads on the iOS App Store in France, where the company is based.
During a television interview prior to the recent AI Action Summit in Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron encouraged the public to choose Le Chat by Mistral over alternatives such as ChatGPT by OpenAI or other options.
This development is not unprecedented in the realm of AI applications. In November 2023, OpenAI garnered significant attention with the launch of its AI chatbot, ChatGPT. Despite its initial availability being limited to iOS users in the U.S., the app achieved 500,000 downloads within just six days. According to the latest metrics from Appfigures, ChatGPT has now been downloaded 350 million times.
Between January 10 and January 31, DeepSeek’s mobile app also reached one million downloads. The Chinese app then experienced a significant surge in late January, attracting millions of additional users in a short span of time.
Mistral faces competition from established Big Tech companies such as Google and Microsoft, who are also eager to enter the AI assistant market. Google is promoting its Gemini assistant, while Microsoft is advancing with its Copilot, both aiming for a place on users’ phone home screens.
