Smart Window, Mozilla's beta browsing assistant, now runs on Mistral models for users in France and North America. By default conversations do not stay on Mozilla's servers. Mistral has agreed to zero data retention.
- France and North America first; the United Kingdom and Germany are expected later this year.
- Per Mistral, the models are fine-tuned on regional languages, dialects and cultural context.
- Per Mistral, this is a road to ordinary people; it traditionally focuses on businesses.
The browser is the last door you pass through before you get to anything. The assistant in it works with your open tabs.
So the question of which model sits there is the smaller one. The bigger one is what is kept after the conversation.
The move is clever for both sides. Mozilla gets a European model with a clear promise about data, which fits everything Firefox says about itself. Mistral gets a road to ordinary users. In its own words, until now it focused mainly on businesses, and with partners like Firefox it goes beyond them.
Bulgaria is not on the list. For now it is France and North America, then the United Kingdom and Germany, and the announcement says nothing about other languages.
Since Mistral says it fine-tunes the models on regional languages, the next question is which ones exactly. The answer will show whether the European assistant is for Europe or only for a few large markets.