In short. Ecosia says Mistral receives AI Chat requests, while public documentation leaves the exact model, endpoint, and contract-specific retention setting unspecified.
Definition: Ecosia's AI Chat sends user chat requests to Mistral, which Ecosia identifies as its external chat provider. Ecosia documents the interface and its own storage choices, while Mistral publishes general rules for inputs, outputs, and retention.
Key facts
- Ecosia describes AI Chat as a conversational feature that returns full-text answers instead of a search results page of links. Ecosia's AI Search help identifies Mistral as the external chat provider.
- Ecosia says it forwards AI Search chat requests to Mistral and stores conversations in browser local storage. Optional chat history is stored on Ecosia's servers in encrypted form.
- AI Chat includes Web Source Mode, which instructs the assistant to pull information from the live web for every query.
- Mistral defines “Input” as data provided or accessed through connected integrations or services to generate an output, including prompts and content. Mistral's Privacy Policy uses this definition.
- Mistral's public policy says that, for its APIs except specific APIs, input and output are kept for the time needed to generate the output and then for thirty (30) rolling days for abuse monitoring unless zero data retention is activated.
What does Ecosia disclose about the recipient?
Ecosia's privacy and data use section states that it “forwards your chat requests to our external chat provider, Mistral.” This is the direct answer to the question. The same help page describes standard web search separately: its standard results are provided by Ecosia's search partners.
AI Chat can also be reached through auto-routing. Ecosia says the system can direct a query from the standard results page to AI Chat when it detects a complex question or a request for a detailed explanation. The first time this happens, the user can disable the feature. This describes when a chat request may leave the ordinary results flow; it does not name a separate provider for the routing decision.
What may be included in a request?
Ecosia describes AI Chat as a full-text conversational service and provides three modes. Web Source Mode asks the assistant to pull information from the live web for all queries. Guided Learning Mode walks through a subject step by step, while Think Longer Mode asks the assistant to spend additional time reasoning before it responds.
The page also documents file uploads in AI Chat. It lists PDF, TXT, DOCX, CSV, XLSX, JPG, and PNG as supported formats, with a maximum of 5 files per conversation and 5 MB per file. Ecosia says file content is usable only in the conversation where it was uploaded and that uploaded files are permanently deleted from Ecosia's systems within 7 days. The public explanation does not map each file type or mode to a particular Mistral endpoint.
Ecosia advises users never to share personal, financial, health, or other sensitive information in the chat. That warning matters because Mistral's policy defines input broadly enough to include prompts and content supplied to generate an output.
How should Mistral's processing terms be read?
Mistral's public Privacy Policy says its API retention rule covers input and output for the period needed to generate the output, followed by thirty (30) rolling days for abuse monitoring unless zero data retention is activated. The wording describes Mistral's APIs generally. It does not identify the product, endpoint, or retention setting used for Ecosia AI Chat.
Mistral's Commercial Terms of Service describe a business arrangement in which Mistral may process personal data on behalf of a customer as a data processor when the customer uses Mistral products on Mistral Infrastructure. The terms refer to a separate Data Processing Agreement. Ecosia's help page identifies Mistral as the provider, but the public pages reviewed here do not state which contractual arrangement applies to Ecosia.
Related terms
FAQ
Is Mistral also Ecosia's ordinary search provider?
Ecosia identifies Mistral as the external provider for AI Search chat requests. It separately says that standard web search results are provided by search partners.
Does Ecosia name the Mistral model used by AI Chat?
Ecosia says it uses several models side by side, including Mistral and open-weight models. Its page names a Mistral small 3.2 model for AI Overviews, while the AI Chat section does not assign a model name to each request.
Where is chat history stored?
Ecosia says conversations are stored in the browser's local storage for the chat interface. If a user opts in to Chat history, Ecosia stores it on its servers in encrypted form; turning the feature off deletes previously saved history permanently.
Should a user enter sensitive information in AI Chat?
Ecosia strongly recommends never sharing personal, financial, health, or other sensitive information in the chat. Its help page says AI is not designed to handle sensitive data.
Sources
- Ecosia Help Center, "AI Search help", 9 October 2026
- Mistral AI, "Privacy Policy", 3 September 2026
- Mistral AI, "Commercial Terms of Service", 25 September 2026
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