Is there a European alternative to ChatGPT? The options for business

Is there a European AI chatbot for business?

Yes. The best known is Vibe from Paris-based Mistral AI, formerly called Le Chat. Mistral also builds the models. Lumo comes from Proton, the company behind Proton Mail, and GreenPT is a Dutch company that runs open models in Europe.

Langdock, from Berlin, offers models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and others in a European environment. Aleph Alpha, from Heidelberg, works mainly with large companies and governments, and has agreed to combine with Canada's Cohere under the Cohere name, subject to regulatory approval.

For AI on your own documents there is seef, from the Netherlands: an environment per company, hosted in the EU, with EU-only processing or your own servers on request.

What makes an AI tool European?

There are five layers, and a tool can be European on one and not on another:

• The company: where is the provider based? That affects which governments can demand data, together with who owns it and which subprocessors it uses.
• The model: who made it? A European service can run an American or Chinese model.
• Storage: where are your chats, files and search index kept?
• Processing: where does the model run while it reads your question? That is often not where your data is stored.
• Subprocessors: which other parties see data, for example for web search? They are listed in the data processing agreement.

What are the European alternatives to ChatGPT?

These are the business options, with two US services that can process in Europe for comparison.

Is a US AI service that processes in Europe enough?

For many companies it is, with a data processing agreement and the right settings. What ChatGPT and Copilot keep in Europe on each plan is covered in the guides on ChatGPT and Copilot.

The law of the provider's home country still applies. The US CLOUD Act requires US providers to hand over data they control when ordered to, even if it is stored outside the US. If that matters to your clients, check ownership and subprocessors as well as the head office: a European provider can still use US subprocessors. With seef you can ask for EU-only processing or hosting on your own servers, and the data processing agreement lists every subprocessor.

Is a European AI chatbot better or safer?

Not automatically. Where a company is based affects which law applies. It says little about answer quality or where everything runs:

• Mistral uses Vibe inputs and outputs for training by default. Users can switch it off, and on Team an admin can do so for the whole organisation; only Enterprise is off by default.
• Proton says Lumo runs on European infrastructure under Swiss law. Switzerland is not in the EU, but it has an EU adequacy decision.
• GreenPT runs open models from Mistral, OpenAI, Alibaba (Qwen), DeepSeek and others in the EU. The processing is European; the maker often is not.
• Langdock keeps models in the EU by default, but a model marked 'global deployment' may process outside the EU, including in the US.
• seef hosts each company's environment in the EU, with EU-only processing on request. Answers show the documents they came from, so you can check them.
• Quality varies by task and by language. Give each candidate the same tasks from your own work and compare the answers.

How do you choose a European alternative to ChatGPT?

Start from your data and work towards the contract:

• Decide which documents and personal data will go in, and what you have promised clients about them.
• Ask for the data processing agreement and the subprocessor list, with each party's location.
• Ask where the model runs, separately from where your data is stored.
• Check that training is off by default on your plan, and who can switch it on.
• Use sign-in through your own accounts, and check that disabling an account also ends active sessions in the tool.

Where does seef fit?

seef fits a company that wants a European provider for AI on its own documents. Each company gets its own environment, hosted in the EU and run by seef's Dutch team, so there is nothing to host or patch yourself. You fill a knowledge base from SharePoint or Google Drive, and answers from it show the documents they came from. seef is a service of Timformatie, certified to ISO 27001:2022 and NEN 7510-1:2024.

We choose the chat model with you: a model hosted in the EU when processing must stay in the EU, or a US model such as Claude. Hosting on your own servers is also possible. The data processing agreement records what we agree, and the security page describes the standard setup. seef is priced per user, by quote, and usually starts with a small group.