Microsoft-backed firm Mistral sees the world moving beyond AI models this year

The head of one of Europe’s buzziest artificial intelligence startups said he expects artificial intelligence technology will move beyond large language models this year.

Arthur Mensch, CEO of French AI firm Mistral, told CNBC he sees product focus in AI broadly moving away from models in 2025 and more toward “systems” that integrate models and contextual business data.

“I think the focus should shift to systems,” Mensch told CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal in an interview Tuesday. “Models are a part of systems, but systems are connected to data, connected to tools, able to actually do things on your behalf, able to act in an agentic way.”

Founded only two years ago, Mistral has quickly become one of Europe’s most hyped AI companies, achieving a $6 billion valuation and backing from U.S. tech giant Microsoft last year. Considered a competitor to OpenAI, the startup is behind the development of several open-source large language models.

Last year saw a lot of buzz emerge in the tech industry over so-called AI “agents.” This refers to the idea of AI assistants that can take actions autonomously with limited human supervision. Unlike AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, models are meant to operate largely in the background.

Mensch sees AI systems in the future benefiting the large language models that are integrated within them. He said that by connecting models to relevant contextual data, they’ll become better at offering tailored solutions for different business needs.

“That’s that’s where this is shifting,” Mensch said. “It also means that the industry that is adopting it is going to distill its expertise into those systems — and that’s where that’s going to be necessary to actually drive the value of AI into those industries.”

AI is the talk of World Economic Forum’s annual forum in Davos, Switzerland, this year. The event is known for gathering the world’s most influential leaders in business and politics.

On the Davos Promenade — which is the focal point of the annual event — major companies from Salesforce to Workday took over cafes, shops and restaurants, building temporary meeting and event spaces with branding heavily displaying the word “AI.”