ESSEC partners with French AI solution Mistral AI for innovation in research and education

Cergy, May 21st, 2025 – ESSEC Business School has signed a strategic partnership with Mistral AI. This partnership aims to accelerate the integration of AI into ESSEC’s research, teaching, and pedagogical innovation, drawing on the work of the Metalab, a pillar of ESSEC's AI strategy.

This collaboration is part of the transformation driven by the TRANSCEND strategy, launched in September 2024, which prioritizes analyzing and exploring AI challenges and opportunities in ESSEC’s institutional and academic processes.

« In an era where artificial intelligence is transforming how we learn, teach, research and work, this strategic partnership with Mistral AI underscores our ambition to better integrate innovation into a responsible approach serving excellence and value creation. » said Vincenzo Vinzi, Dean and President of ESSEC Business School.

A collaboration anchored in research and education

Partnering with Mistral AI reflects a humanistic and ethical approach to AI. Mistral's technological approach, based on open-source models covering all of ESSEC's uses, meets a growing demand for ethics and digital sovereignty in higher education.

Mistral's staff will support ESSEC researchers, professors, and staff in accessing suitable tools, concrete use cases, and a secure framework for using generative AI. The goal is to encourage the controlled and reasonable adoption of AI tools, placing people at the heart of the solution.

To that end, the Le Chat Entreprise tool will be gradually implemented starting June 1st, 2025, with several key goals in mind:

Support ESSEC researchers in their work on AI models and uses, as well as its integration into business processes and organizational transformations.
Encourage the integration of Mistral models in ongoing use cases (educational assistants, recruitment officers, HR employees, financial staff...)• Involve Mistral AI in key training, notably through active participation in the board of the ESSEC | CentraleSupelec Master in Data Sciences & Business Analytics.
Equip professors, staff, and students with licenses to promote the widespread adoption of Mistral AI solutions within ESSEC, providing appropriate support.

« We are proud to team up with ESSEC. By making our generative AI tools available to ESSEC students, professors and researchers, Mistral AI will contribute to the acceleration of ESSEC’s ambitious strategy, and help train tomorrow’s AI leaders. » said Arthur Mensch, co-founder and CEO of Mistral AI.

The Metalab, co-directed by Guillaume Chevillon as its academic director and Abdelmounaim Derraz as its executive director, will coordinate the partnership. The Metalab will act as an interface between Mistral and researchers, program leadership (notably the Bachelor AIDAMS and the Master in Data Sciences & Business Analytics) and educational teams. It will ensure that use cases from experiments allow for structured and high-value experience sharing for stakeholders.

Marie Caroline Saro, External Communications Manager - 06 99 09 82 25 - saro@essec.edu

Julia Smith, International Press Relations Officer - 01 34 43 98 25 - smith@essec.edu