Mistral's Recomposed Lineup: What Changed in 2026
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In 2026, Mistral AI overhauled most of its lineup—not once, but twice. Spring and summer brought a new core lineup, a next-generation OCR, audio and orchestration building blocks, and the transformation of their Le Chat assistant into Vibe. Fall brought their largest model to date, Mistral Large 4, a full refresh of the audio family with Voxtral 3, and the deprecation of many summer models. The concepts you learned in our Mistral courses remain valid; what changes are the names, identifiers, and deprecation dates.
Announcements of the Year, in Order
| Date | Announcement |
|---|---|
| March 16, 2026 | Mistral Small 4 |
| March 23, 2026 | Voxtral TTS |
| April 27, 2026 | Workflows (public preview) |
| May 22, 2026 | Mistral Medium 3.5, Vibe Work Mode, Connectors (MCP) |
| May 28, 2026 | Vibe, the unified agent: Le Chat becomes Vibe; Search Toolkit |
| June 23, 2026 | Mistral OCR 4 |
| July 16, 2026 | OCR 4.1, generally available on August 31 |
| September 30, 2026 | Retirement of OCR 4.0 |
| October 6, 2026 | Mistral Large 4 in public preview, then open weights released in October |
| October 20, 2026 | Voxtral 3 and Voice Agents |
| October 31, 2026 | Deprecation of Medium 3.5, Large 3, and 2026 audio models |
A Correction for Your Notes
An earlier version of this course stated that “Le Chat” had not been renamed “Vibe.” That was incorrect, and we are correcting it here. Mistral’s official announcement on May 28, 2026, is explicit: Le Chat is now Vibe, a single agent and license for work and code, carrying over your conversations, settings, and subscriptions. The documentation followed suit: its /le-chat/ pages redirect to /vibe/, and the legacy Le Chat experience remains accessible in Vibe’s Chat mode. Lesson 9 details this change. This episode reinforces the rule we apply throughout this course: verify facts against the official source, and verify them again when that source evolves.
The Lineup as of November 2, 2026
The official documentation models page looks quite different today than it did in the summer. Among generalists, Mistral Small 4 and the Ministral 3 series (14B, 8B, 3B) are generally available, and Mistral Large 4 is in public preview: it is the designated successor to Medium 3.5 and Large 3, both deprecated since October 31 and retired on April 30, 2027. On the specialist side, OCR 4.1 replaced OCR 4.0, Codestral remains the code completion model, and the audio family moves to Voxtral 3, in public preview. Mistral now also offers new specialized models in preview—Shieldstral for moderation, Timestral for time series—and hosts third-party models, such as Z.ai’s GLM 5.3 or DeepSeek V4.1 Flash.
Magistral models, meanwhile, have left the lineup: retired or deprecated depending on the version, they point toward Small 4 and the generalists, which now handle reasoning. Lesson 8 covers this migration, and Lesson 12 covers all autumn deprecations.
How to Use This Course
Lessons 2 to 8 describe the summer lineup—Medium 3.5, Small 4, Large 3, Ministral 3, Devstral 2, OCR 4, Voxtral, Vibe, Workflows—and note at the top what has changed since. Lessons 9 to 11 present autumn: Vibe, Mistral Large 4, Voxtral 3, and the new models. Lesson 12 gathers deprecations and proposes a migration plan. Before you start, note the Mistral models you use today: you’ll know immediately which lessons apply to you.
Key Takeaways
- Since May 28, 2026, Le Chat is called Vibe; the legacy experience remains in Chat mode
- Mistral Large 4 (public preview since October 6) replaces Medium 3.5 and Large 3, deprecated on October 31
- OCR 4.1 replaced OCR 4.0, retired on September 30; audio moves to Voxtral 3
- Magistral left the lineup: reasoning is now handled by generalists