# Mistral Enters Speech AI with Voxtral Mini Model

> The company, known for its powerful text models, has released its first open-source speech recognition system designed for real-time, multilingual transcription.

Published by The Open Weights on Jan 21, 2026. Canonical: https://theopenweights.com/news/voxtral-mini-4b-realtime-cb0s

## Key facts

- Company: Mistral AI
- Model: Voxtral Mini 4B Realtime
- Version: Mini-4B-Realtime-2602
- Category: Speech → Text
- Modalities: Speech → Text
- License: Apache 2.0 (Open weights, commercial use allowed)
- Parameters: 4B
- Architecture: VoxtralRealtimeForConditionalGeneration
- Precision: BF16
- Weights size: 8.9 GB
- Languages: 13 languages
- Significance: notable
- Published: 2026-01-21
- Last verified: 2026-06-17
- Hugging Face: https://huggingface.co/mistralai/Voxtral-Mini-4B-Realtime-2602
- Canonical URL: https://theopenweights.com/news/voxtral-mini-4b-realtime-cb0s

Mistral AI, a company that has rapidly built a reputation for its powerful open-source text models, has released Voxtral Mini 4B Realtime, its first publicly available model for automatic speech recognition (ASR).

This new 4-billion-parameter system is designed specifically for real-time, multilingual speech-to-text applications. Its focus on low-latency performance makes it a candidate for tasks like live captioning, meeting transcription, and voice-activated assistants where immediate feedback is critical.

## A New Modality for Mistral

The release signals a significant expansion for the Paris-based AI lab. While previously focused exclusively on text generation with models like Mistral 7B and Mixtral, the company is now entering the competitive audio AI space. This move positions Voxtral as an open-source alternative to established ASR systems, including OpenAI's popular Whisper model.

By releasing Voxtral Mini under a permissive Apache 2.0 license, Mistral continues its strategy of providing foundational tools for developers. The model is now available for download and experimentation on the [Hugging Face Hub](https://huggingface.co/mistralai/Voxtral-Mini-4B-Realtime-2602), allowing the community to build upon and integrate it into new voice-powered applications.

## Get the model

- [Hugging Face](https://huggingface.co/mistralai/Voxtral-Mini-4B-Realtime-2602)

## Sources

- [mistralai/Voxtral-Mini-4B-Realtime-2602](https://huggingface.co/mistralai/Voxtral-Mini-4B-Realtime-2602) — Hugging Face, Jan 21, 2026

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Source: The Open Weights (https://theopenweights.com/). Aggregated and written by Claude, curated by humans. Cite as: "Mistral Enters Speech AI with Voxtral Mini Model", The Open Weights, Jan 21, 2026, https://theopenweights.com/news/voxtral-mini-4b-realtime-cb0s