ChatEurope, the first chatbot dedicated to European current affairs

Launched by fifteen partners, including a dozen leading European media outlets, this unique news platform integrates, for the first time, a chatbot—an AI-powered conversational agent—capable of answering your questions about European current affairs in all EU languages. Its purpose is simple: to help you better understand Europe, how it works, how decisions are made, and how those decisions affect your life.

Coordinated by Agence France-Presse (AFP), the media consortium behind the platform brings together prominent players in European journalism: German and French broadcasters Deutsche Welle and France Médias Monde; Romanian radio station RFI Romania; the German and Italian news agencies dpa and ANSA; the Polish media group Agora; the anti-disinformation Fundación Maldita.es; the Spanish daily El País; and the Southeast Europe–focused digital outlet OBCT.

“A collaborative newsroom, an approach that brings citizens closer to the information that directly affects them, and technology as a tool to deliver that information are the core elements of ChatEurope—and also some of the principles that have always guided the work of Fundación Maldita.es in the fight against disinformation. That’s why we are taking part in this project and believe it will be a useful and essential media outlet to help ensure European citizens receive the high-quality information they need to make better decisions in their daily lives,” said Clara Jiménez Cruz, CEO of Fundación Maldita.es.

Fundación Maldita.es will participate in the project by producing short explanatory pieces, complemented with interactive elements, that provide the Spanish perspective on European current affairs and address national issues with a European dimension, helping citizens in other Member States understand what is happening in Spain. At the heart of this innovative project is the ChatEurope chatbot, developed by the Romanian company DRUID and powered by the language model of the French group Mistral. As the project’s technical partner, XWiki has developed the news platform. dpa and AFP subsidiaries news aktuell and MediaConnect are responsible for communications. The chatbot generates its answers exclusively from the thousands of articles provided by consortium members and always cites its sources, offering ChatEurope users guarantees of reliability amid the widespread disinformation circulating on social media. In a rapidly evolving media landscape, it also provides users with a fully personalized experience, allowing them to navigate content based on the questions they ask.

Breaking news, analysis, explanatory formats to understand Europe, articles on the national implications of European policies, videos for social media, and even documentaries—ChatEurope is aimed at all European citizens, regardless of their origin or age. The platform has launched in seven languages—French, English, Spanish, Italian, German, Romanian, and Polish—but its chatbot is able to respond in all EU languages.

ChatEurope is co-funded by the European Commission and operates with editorial independence, which is key to its credibility. “By combining reliability and innovation, ChatEurope will change the rules of the game for information on European affairs. Through this new platform, European citizens will be able to converse in their own language with a chatbot capable of finding credible, verified answers to their questions based on news content provided by leading media outlets. Media organizations urgently need to adapt to widespread disinformation and the rise of artificial intelligence, and that is exactly what we are doing with ChatEurope,” said Christine Buhagiar, Director of Development and Diversification at AFP.

ChatEurope, the first chatbot dedicated to European current affairs

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