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.