Vienna Start-up Eustella Launches European AI App as ChatGPT Alternative

Sovereignty as the Core Promise

Among the models being further developed and fine-tuned in Vienna are Gemma 4 from Google, Qwen 3.5/3.7 from Alibaba, gpt-oss-120b from OpenAI, Mistral from Mistral AI, as well as Flux from Black Forest Labs for image generation. With this, Eustella on the one hand uses European models, but also relies on open models that were trained in the USA or China. Rosoli acknowledged: "Aber wir haben derzeit noch nicht so große performante eigene Modelle." The industry has long been working on similar agent solutions, including at Meta and OpenAI.

Functionally, the offering ranges from internet research to travel planning, news, image generation, and presentations, to project management, group chats, and a "Memory" function that stores user preferences and content. Custom AI agents can also be created. In the medium term, Eustella plans to extend these agents so that they can independently execute transactions, such as booking flights or hotels or ordering products in online shops.

Data Partners from Austria

Among its data partners, Eustella cooperates with the Austrian crypto company Bitpanda, which provides real-time Bitcoin prices, as well as with the price comparison platform Geizhals. "Mit Bitpanda als Datenquelle können Nutzerinnen und Nutzer über eustella aktuelle Krypto-Preise in Echtzeit abrufen," says Christian Trummer, Chief Scientist and co-founder of Bitpanda. Markus Nigl, board member of Geizhals, sees the cooperation as the launch pad for Agentic Commerce: "Unsere über viele Jahre gewachsene Preis- und Produktdatenbank macht aus jeder Empfehlung eine fundierte, nachvollziehbare Entscheidung."

In terms of pricing, Eustella positions itself clearly below the US competitors: A subscription starts at 5.99 euros per month, and a free basic membership is also available. For comparison, the company cites OpenAI starting at 7.99 euros and Anthropic at 20 euros per month. "Unsere Lösung soll besser und günstiger sein und sie soll auch mehr Spaß machen," says Rosoli. "Es gibt einen Markt für Souveränität und Datenschutz."

Price and Political Support

The project received political support from Vienna from Alexander Pröll, Austrian State Secretary for Digitalization: "Mit eustella zeigt sich, dass digitale Souveränität in Europa kein Schlagwort bleibt, sondern Realität wird." Markus Stöhr, Co-Lead of AI Factory Austria AI:AT, explained that eustella shows "sehr konkret, wie aus europäischer KI-Kompetenz ein marktfähiges Produkt entsteht".

Geopolitical Background

The initiative is also set against the geopolitical backdrop: When the US AI provider Anthropic had to block access to its best models for non-US users two weeks ago at the behest of the US government, this dramatically illustrated Europe's dependence, according to the announcement. According to the market data cited, there are more than 130 million AI users in Europe, of whom two thirds would prefer European offerings.

Eustella belongs to the company AI Newsrooms Technology, which also operates the tech and start-up media outlet Trending Topics and offers AI solutions for editorial offices. The owners include the Compass Group, the founders, as well as the Austrian investor Hansi Hansmann. Rosoli sees the product as internationally positioned: "Wir haben Nutzerinnen und Nutzer von Zypern bis Portugal", the majority of whom currently come from Austria and Germany; it has also been tested in Switzerland, Scandinavia, and the UK.