DeepSeek släpper!

So DeepSeek dropped an AI app yesterday and boom. Straight to number one in both the Apple & Google playlist wiping off a huge amount on the New York Stock exchange.

It almost feels like a horserace these days with AI platforms. Open AI stormed into an early lead with old favourite Claude limping just behind. Gemini really put pressure on Open AI before Grok levelled the race, now the Chinese platform DeepSeek has sprung into the lead.

But what makes this platform such a threat to the established few?

Well mainly its price and its open Source. Yes it lacks a lot of features (Image creation, voice entry etc) but the sheer difference in cost for a user is mindblowing.

The app is completely free to use, and DeepSeek’s R1 model is powerful enough to be comparable to OpenAI’s o1 “reasoning” model, except DeepSeek’s chatbot is not sequestered behind a $20-a-month paywall like OpenAI’s is. Also, the DeepSeek model was efficiently trained using less powerful AI chips, making it a benchmark of innovative engineering.

So, why is the fact that DeepSeek is free notable? It’s about the raw power of the model that’s generating these free-for-now answers. As previously mentioned, DeepSeek’s R1 mimics OpenAI’s latest o1 model, without the $20-a-month subscription fee for the basic version and $200-a-month for the most capable model. This comes as a major blow to OpenAI’s attempt to monetize ChatGPT through subscriptions.

Personally I believe Grok is still the leader (watch out for Grok 3.0!) but Deepseek is easily a major disrupter in the AI market.

#AI #deepseek #Chatgpt #openAI