A European AI challenger goes after GitHub Copilot: Mistral launches Vibe 2.0

Mistral AI, the French artificial intelligence company that has positioned itself as Europe's leading challenger to American AI giants, announced on Tuesday the general availability of Mistral Vibe 2.0, a significant upgrade to its terminal-based coding agent that’s the startup's most aggressive push yet into the competitive AI-assisted software development market.

The release is a pivotal moment for the Paris-based company, which is transitioning its developer tools from a free testing phase to a commercial product integrated with its paid subscription plans. The move comes just days after Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch told Bloomberg Television at the World Economic Forum in Davos that the company expects to cross €1 billion in revenue by the end of 2026 — a projection that would still leave it far behind American competitors but would cement its position as Europe's preeminent AI firm.

"The announcement is more of an upgrade ...