Nathan Drescher / Android Authority
I’ve cut my ties to a bunch of American tech. Gmail became Fastmail, Keep turned into Obsidian, and I replaced Tasks with ToDoist. I figured AI would be the hardest one to give up. I’ve been using ChatGPT in an unorthodox way, not for chatting, but as a full-on project management system for scheduling, reminders, and budgeting. Then I stumbled on LeChat a few months ago.
LeChat, from the company Mistral, is Europe’s answer to the LLM arms race. I used it instead of ChatGPT to run my life for a full week, pushing it way beyond what it was built for. What I found was a mix of blazing speed and blunt honesty, as well as a bunch of limitations to my workflow.
Would you consider switching to a non-American AI tool like LeChat? 64 votes Yes, I'm already using a non-American AI tool. 36 % I'm actively looking for alternatives. 30 % Maybe, I hadn't thought of it before. 20 % No, I'm sticking with American tech. 14 %
Switching away from American AI
Nathan Drescher / Android Authority
I’ve been feeling uneasy about using ChatGPT for a while now. The leadership drama, opaque corporate structure, its close ties to some people in the US government…these already had me questioning my choice to stick with it. But worse than that was how much ChatGPT 4o feels like it is degrading recently. I don’t use this LLM for chatting or writing emails. I use it to manage my day, but it was going off the rails by forgetting things I’d input like my diet, giving me randomly hallucinated events when I asked it what was next on my schedule, and other such shenanigans.
LeChat felt different. It is built on Mistral’s open models and adheres to Europe’s strict privacy laws. It doesn’t track me outside of the app like Gemini. Plus, its answers are practically instant. So I closed ChatGPT for a week and made LeChat my go-to assistant for everything I’d normally delegate to an AI.
This AI is a breath of fresh air
Nathan Drescher / Android Authority
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