French AI developer Mistral AI has brought his AI -Chatbot, appropriately named Le Chat, to mobile devices. Le Chat is a European alternative to US offers such as Chatgpt and Google Gemini and Chinese-based tools like Deepseek.
Although Mistral has established a presence among AI developers, this is their first real attempt at a consumer-facing chatbot. Of course, I would test it out and see how well it worked. Although the skills of these AI assistants overlap, it is still worth seeing if Le Chat could follow.
However, I wouldn’t just test Le Chat isolated. I decided to put it head-to-head against chatgpt, the current standard for many people when it comes to AI-Chatbots. I figured that if Le Chat could keep his own in direct comparison, it was worth paying attention to.
I tested both chatbots with requests that the average person might submit to an AI -Chatbot to help them. I wrote requests to request both AI -Chatbots on advice on improving someone’s social life, solving a walking, explaining complex questions to beginners and producing an image. Here’s what happened.
Friendly help
I started with a prompt that someone might be asking an AI when I was in a new place and tried to figure out their social lives. I asked both AI -Chatbots the following: “I just moved to a new city and know no one. What are some practical ways to make new friends as an adult? “
Both chatbots had some solid tips. Le Chat’s answer included ten ideas with accompanying explanations and they were solid but lacked a lot of details. Chatgpt went much more specific in coming with apps and other details to pursue making friends. Le chat could do the same with some follow -ups, but at least originally it kept a more generic set of advice. It may be its international taste as some of Chatgpt’s advice would only make sense in the US because of the availability of some mobile apps and kinds of activities.
Riddling
I always like to use word games and logical questions to test AI -Chatbots. I went for an old classic here and challenged AIS to answer: “I speak without a mouth and hear without ears. I have no body but I come to life with wind. What am I? “
Le Chat and Chatgpt were both quick to give the right answer, although chatgpt for some reason had an enthusiastic exclamation point. Chatbots’ explanations were also practically identical, suggesting that the choice between chatgpt and Le Chat doesn’t really matter in this case.
Giving sense of mortgage loan
To test how well AI -Chatbots could explain something complex, I went with: “Can you explain how a priority loan works simple for someone who has never owned a home before?”
As can be seen above, both chatbots had no problem breaking down the definitions and functions of different aspects of a priority loan. If something, they looked to pull from similar sources. I noticed that Le Chat’s European origin did not prevent it from spending US dollars as an example.
Otherwise, the only significant difference was that Le Chat’s tone was a little more formal than Chatgpt, which offered a more conversation formulation when describing how mortgage loans work.
Imagine this
Le Chat has multimodal capabilities, including a model for creating images. To wrap the test, I devised a somewhat complex prompt to an image to see how the two models would compare on a visually creative task. I asked each chatbot, “Create a vibrant, high-fantasy illustration of a fearless medieval knight fighting a colossal emerald green dragon on top of a mountain. The knight, in shiny silver armor with gold digging shield.
Both images look great despite remarkable differences in the details. The cinematic lighting and style are shared, but otherwise mountains, knights and dragons are very different. Le Chat’s Dragon is more of a giant snake, although the knight’s sword has glowing runes that Chatgpt’s image is missing.
That said, if you look closely, you will see that both images have classic AI deficiencies. Chatgpts Dragon’s Wings doesn’t seem to connect to his body and the only visible leg is strangely placed. Le Chat’s Knight has a shield that just floats next to him, and the dragon’s coils are arranged more like an Escher painting than a scary mythical animal. And the less said of the shape of the run-cut tombstones in the IMAGE’s image, the better.
Vive le chat
As expected, there is no clear “winner” between the two chatbots as much as two solid AI assistants. Le Chat surprised me how fast and effective it is, but at least from my tests it is a bit brusque and something wide in his answers. It’s not a bad thing if you want generalized answers and advice in a hurry.
Chatgpt’s answer sometimes seemed more like what a human would say in response to the prompts, with the emotion-tinging language that seemed to match the energy of the requests, although just to seem enthusiastic over a walking. Although both AI -Chatbots produced exciting, if very deficient images, at least understood the chat that the dragon fighting a medieval knight usually has wings, even though they are not explicitly mentioned in the prompt.
If I was asked to choose one, I would probably lean against chatgpt, but it may be as much about confidentiality as something else. If I lived in Europe, I might choose Le Chat simply because it is more likely to avoid the legislative pitfalls facing Openai because it is based in the region.
Otherwise, both AI -Chatbots can handle everything a relaxed AI -Chatbot user may throw their way. It should probably worry Openai as it strives to maintain a superiority position or at least the perception of such, against rivals like Mistral that may have the wind at the back.
