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Since OpenAI introduced Deep Research, an AI agent that can conduct research for users and generate a comprehensive report, many other companies have released their own versions of this capability, all named Deep Research.
Deep Research, as a feature and product, can be accessed through various platforms, including Google’s Gemini, AlphaSense, You.com, DeepSeek, Grok 3 and many others. Now, French company Mistral joins the fray with the launch of deep research capabilities into its Le Chat, among other updates to the platform.
In a blog post, the company said Deep Research and other new features will make Le Chat “even more capable, more intuitive and more fun.”
Le Chat users can open research mode and ask it something. The chatbot then asks questions to clarify some information and then begins gathering sources. It will put together “a structured, reference-backed report that’s easy to follow.”
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Mistral said its research is powered by a Deep Research agent, which it designed to be “genuinely helpful” and feels like working with an organized research partner.
Deep Research has been called “the first mass market AI that could displace jobs,” especially since it can put out reports faster than human analysts.
Mistral also updated “thinking mode,” where Le Chat users can access the company’s chain-of-thought model Magistral, to read and respond in different languages. It can also code-switch mid-sentence.
Prompt-based image editing and other features
For people creating images on the chat app, they can ask the chatbot to edit parts of the photo with just a prompt. Users can say something like “generate a drawing of a cat,” then ask Le Chat to “place him in Istanbul,” and it will do just that.
“It’s ideal for making consistent edits across a series, keeping people, objects, and design elements recognizable from one image to the next,” Mistral said.
Thanks to the recently released speech recognition model, Voxtral, Le Chat can now support voice mode, where users can chat out loud with the platform. The company said this mode is best for low-latency speech recognition and keeping up with someone’s conversational pace.
Le Chat’s new Projects feature allows users to organize related conversations and topics into groups. The projects will utilize their own libraries — which can include uploaded files — and retain tools and preferred settings. This is similar to Google’s NotebookLM.
Playing catch-up
Many of the new features on Le Chat may seem familiar. It’s normal for other chat platforms to introduce similar features, especially as people begin to expect these capabilities when using chat systems.
For example, both Gemini and ChatGPT allow users to edit generated photos using a prompt. Sometimes, the chatbots misunderstand and redo the entire image. However, I recently generated and edited a photo with ChatGPT, and the chatbot removed exactly what I wanted it to.
Voice mode has been available on ChatGPT since September 2024, though ChatGPT always included a “Read Aloud” feature. Project Astra from Google took voice mode to a new level, demonstrating in a demo that users can point out something in the physical world to Gemini and ask it to describe it out loud.
However, Mistral has the advantage of being Europe-based and can bring features directly to the European market. Companies like OpenAI often struggle to bring certain services, such as ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode, to Europe due to data regulations and some provisions of the European Union’s AI Act.
Despite this, users seemed excited that Mistral brought many new powerful features to Le Chat, with some early users seeing strong performance from Mistral’s Deep Research.
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