Albert at France Services — a State Generative-AI Assistant Tested in 48 Counters and Not Generalised 'In Its Current Form'

Albert is the French State's generative-AI programme run by DINUM. One strand was a tool for France Services advisers, who help citizens with administrative procedures. It queried a reliable knowledge base and generated answers with linked sources. The State announced in December 2023 that it would be deployed across a network of about 2,600 sites.
The first version was tested in 48 France Services maisons. On 9 January 2026 DINUM said the tool would not be generalised 'in its current form'. Press reports (AFP, among others) cite technical malfunctions and inaccurate answers, raised by several unions. No satisfaction or time-saving figures for this strand were found. The 74% satisfaction and seven-to-three-day response-time figures sometimes quoted come from a separate test on drafting replies to citizens' online comments, so they are not evidence for Albert at France Services.
The programme was not abandoned. DINUM says most experimental projects under the Albert name are now permanent, including the Albert API, a sovereign layer connecting administrations to several language models. Albert Conversation became the 'Assistant IA', built on Mistral models and being tested with 10,000 public agents until June 2026. A full evaluation, including the cost of wider rollout, was planned for summer 2026, and DINUM is developing a tool adapted to France Services. We found no published result of that evaluation.
The case is included as a documented example of a front-line AI assistant halted on reliability grounds while the platform around it continued.

Read the full analysis: https://www.generation-nt.com/actualites/ia-albert-etat-francais-mistral-dinum-echec-2069044