Microsoft's Push Beyond ChatGPT - Strikes Deal With OpenAI's French Rival Mistral

Monday, Microsoft Corp MSFT and French artificial intelligence start-up Mistral AI solidified a multi-year partnership, marking a significant stride in the evolution of the AI industry. 

This strategic collaboration provides Mistral AI access to Microsoft’s Azure AI infrastructure, propelling the rapid development and deployment of their next-generation large language models (LLMs), the company said in a blog post. 

The partnership not only opens doors to new commercial opportunities for Mistral AI but also facilitates global market expansion and encourages ongoing research collaboration.

Microsoft made a EUR 15 million investment in Mistral AI which would convert into equity in Mistral's next funding round.

Also Read: Apple’s ChatGPT Rival? iPhone Maker Starts Testing AI-Powered ‘Ask’ For Customer Service.

Microsoft and Mistral AI will explore collaboration around training purpose-specific models for select customers, including European public sector workloads.

The Financial Times reports that the partnership will include Microsoft taking a minor stake in the 10-month-old start-up.

The tech giant is under regulatory scrutiny in Europe and the U.S. for its more than $10 billion investment in OpenAI.

Citing a spokesperson, Reuters noted that Mistral has also been working with Amazon.com Inc AMZN and Alphabet Inc’s GOOGL GOOG Google to distribute its models. 

It plans to make Mistral Large available on other cloud platforms in the next few months.

Last week, Microsoft started rolling out new Generative AI-powered photo editing features to hundreds of millions of Windows 10 users, with support for Windows 11 expected to follow soon.

Microsoft has updated the Windows Photos app with a “Generative erase” feature that leverages AI to eliminate distractions from images.

Recently, OpenAI’s ChatGPT experienced a period of “unexpected responses.” The result was a seemingly unending series of posts on social media with confused users asking if this is where AI chatbots stop making sense.

One user asked ChatGPT for a recipe for a certain dish, but the chatbot went on what reads like a long rant.

Read Next: Gemini AI Takes A Timeout: Google Halts Image Generation After Historical Figure Controversy.

Price Action: MSFT shares are down 0.25% at $409.33 on the last check Monday.

Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

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