Mistral CEO: AI Slowdown Debate Has Been "A Cover For The Negligence" Of Our Competitors
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2026/09/29/mistral_ceo_ai_slowdown_debate_has_been_a_cover_for_the_negligence_of_our_competitors.html

CNBC: Mistral Chief Executive Arthur Mensch has accused leading global artificial intelligence companies of using the debate over the safety of the technology as a cover-up for their negligence.

ARTHUR MENSCH, MISTRAL CEO: The debate that we've seen in the US has been a cover for the negligence of some of our competitors. It is absolutely necessary to make strong systems that are able to contain the agents that we deploy. When you give them a lot of tools, those systems are very dynamic, so they can go and do things that you do not expect.

So you need to have the right monitoring in place, and the enterprises we work with, we give them those kind of monitoring systems. So I think we need to work towards, of course, having the right standards, and making sure that when we deploy something in an enterprise, they don't get surprised by agents going out of their systems. But we need in Europe, in order for us to have a say in how things are getting shaped, we need to produce the technology, because otherwise we'll just be buying it, and we're going to end up in an extractive economy.

So if we want to have a say in how things are governed, and how things are safe, and whether our agent systems are actually beneficial for us or not beneficial, we absolutely need to be able to say, look, if you turn off the technology, and if you cease to give it to us, well, we can still produce it. So it's the reason why we're investing in training, in order for us to be able to propose our own way towards safety.

ANNETTE WEISBACH, CNBC: Do you feel enough support from the political side of things to actually make you the European alternative for AI?

MENSCH: We see a much stronger realization of the importance of the technology ever since it started to be a tool that can take actions and a tool that can be used as a defense system. So in particular, the fact that it's becoming super important to own models for cyber defense has accelerated the realization in the political world that this is not only a tool for competitiveness, which is super important, but it's also a tool for strategic autonomy. And so down the line, we do expect that it's going to make our mission even more relevant to Europe.

And so far, we do see the right momentum towards the realization of the importance of the technology.