AI startup Mistral AI is introducing a new free tier for developers to refine AI models and create test apps.

Mistral AI is introducing a new free tier for developers to refine AI models and create test apps. The French start-up announced this in a blog post on Tuesday. In addition, the company is introducing price reductions so that developers can access its AI models via API endpoints. Finally, the free AI chatbot “le Chat” for consumers is equipped with image processing.

Attract developers

French AI startup Mistral AI is adding several updates that the company hopes will attract developers’ attention. For example, developers will be able to refine Mistral AI models and create test apps through a new free tier. This new tier will be available through la Plateforme, Mistral’s API server platform. “This offers developers the opportunity to start experimenting, evaluating and prototyping for free,” Mistral AI said.

In addition, Mistral is now integrating its latest model version, Pixtral 12B, into the consumer chatbot le Chat for free. “Pixtral 12B is the first open source model that supports images of any size without affecting text-based performance,” says Mistral. The model is also available under the Apache 2.0 license, which allows you to upload files securely without the intervention of an external provider.

Prices reduced

Mistral AI is implementing several price reductions: Mistral Nemo (50% price reduction), Mistral Small (80%), Codestral (80%) and Mistral Large (33%). The price of the recently announced Pixtral 12B remains the same. The updated prices are also reflected in Mistral AI’s cloud platform partner offers (Azure AI Studio, Amazon Bedrock, Google Vertex AI).