French Startup Mistral Launches Magistral, Europe’s First AI Reasoning Model - 1

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French Startup Mistral Launches Magistral, Europe’s First AI Reasoning Model

  • Written by Andrea Miliani Former Tech News Expert
  • Fact-Checked by Sarah Frazier Former Content Manager

The French startup Mistral launched its first AI reasoning model on Tuesday, marking the first of its kind developed in Europe. The new AI system, called Magistral, is positioned to compete with models such as DeepSeek-R1, Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro, and OpenAI’s o3.

In a rush? Here are the quick facts:

  • Mistral launched its first AI reasoning model, Magistral, set to compete with similar models such as DeepSeek-R1, Gemini 2.5 Pro, and OpenAI’s o3.
  • Magistral comes with two variants, Magistral Small and Magistral Medium.
  • This is the first reasoning AI model developed in Europe.

According to the official announcement , Magistral comes in two variants: Magistral Small —24B parameter open-source— and Magistral Medium —a more powerful version designed for enterprise use. Mistral’s reasoning model includes multilingual capabilities and introduces two new modes in Le Chat: Flash Answers and Think mode.

“Today, we’re excited to announce our latest contribution to AI research with Magistral — our first reasoning model,” wrote Mistral on its website. “Released in both open and enterprise versions, Magistral is designed to think things through — in ways familiar to us — while bringing expertise across professional domains, transparent reasoning that you can follow and verify, along with deep multilingual flexibility.”

Magistral can assist users with coding projects by generating plans, backend architecture, frontend design, and data engineering workflows. The company also shared a video demonstrating the model’s coding capabilities.

Mistral offered benchmark test results as well, comparing Magistral to other models such as DeepSeek-V3 and DeepSeek-R1—which was recently updated —, achieving strong scores. Mistral also shared a paper with more technical details of the new technology.

According to Reuters , Mistral is “Europe’s best shot” at developing competitive AI models in the region, but hasn’t advanced as fast as some of its competitors in China or the United States.

The French startup has had the president Emmanuel Macron’s support and was recently valued at $6.2 billion by venture capitalists. With the launch of Magistral, it keeps developing its growing potential to compete against other tech giants in the global AI race.

Anthropic Shut Down Its AI-written Blog After Just Weeks. - 2

Image by TechCrunch, From Flickr

Anthropic Shut Down Its AI-written Blog After Just Weeks.

  • Written by Kiara Fabbri Former Tech News Writer
  • Fact-Checked by Sarah Frazier Former Content Manager

AI startup Anthropic has quietly shut down its new blog, Claude Explains, just weeks after launching it.

In a rush? Here are the quick facts:

  • The blog mixed Claude’s writing with human edits on technical topics.
  • Transparency issues sparked criticism on Reddit and social media.
  • Anthropic offered no public explanation for the sudden shutdown.

The blog featured content generated by the chatbot ‘‘Claude,’’ while human editors refined it. TechCrunch reports that the purpose of this collaboration was to showcase how AI and human experts can work together. The blog now it’s completely offline and its webpage exists only as a redirect to Anthropic’s homepage.

According to TechCrunch, the blog was a “pilot” aimed at merging user-requested explainer content with marketing initiatives at the company. The blog presented articles about code simplification, and business AI applications. However, it failed to establish a clear distinction between Claude’s automated content and human editorial work.

TechCrunch reports that a company spokesperson had previously described the blog as “a demonstration of how human expertise and AI capabilities can work together,” adding, “Rather than replacing human expertise, we’re showing how AI can amplify what subject matter experts can accomplish.”

Futurism reports that the blog sparked mixed reactions online. Some users praised the idea, while others criticized it for lacking transparency. “Blogs typically aren’t written in the third person,” one Reddit user pointed out. Another said, “If it needs a human to tell it what to write, it’s not writing its own blog.”

Despite drawing over 24 backlinks from other websites, its ambiguous authorship, combined with its unclear purpose, created skepticism among readers. Critics doubted that the blog was a marketing tool masquerading as innovative content, as noted by Futurism.

The company, Anthropic, has not provided any explanation regarding the blog’s closure. It might have shut down the blog out of concern about making false promises regarding Claude’s writing capabilities.