It’s the tech news that everyone is talking about right now: the launch of Chinese company DeepSeek’s new open-source large language model (LLM) has sent shockwaves through the AI industry.
The chatbot, developed on a shoestring budget, is currently topping the charts as the most downloaded free app in the UK and US, surpassing OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which reportedly cost billions to develop and, until now, has dominated the LLM market.
Tech-focused shares have fallen since DeepSeek’s release, with Nvidia, which recently surpassed Apple as the most valuable company in the world thanks to its crucial role in manufacturing chips used in AI development, losing over £400 billion in market value.
The release of DeepSeek has been hailed as AI’s “Sputnik moment”, with US President Donald Trump labelling it a “wake-up call” for America’s tech industry.
In this blog, however, we aren’t interested in stock markets, mega-corporations or political talking heads – we’re getting to the bottom of what this all means for us as the end-user. How will the release of DeepSeek affect AI-enhanced content, and is it time to delete your ChatGPT account? Read on to find out.
Is DeepSeek better than ChatGPT?
DeepSeek claims its new R-1 model is good enough to rival OpenAI’s flagship model o1, with many users reporting impressive results from their interactions with the chatbot so far.
The two LLMs are indeed comparable in terms of performance – the key difference being that DeepSeek was developed at a fraction of the cost of ChatGPT. Unlike ChatGPT, DeepSeek is also open-source, meaning users can freely download the original source code and modify it however they please.
While this clearly has huge ramifications for the AI industry from a business standpoint, those of us using LLMs to assist with content creation probably won’t notice a huge difference between DeepSeek and ChatGPT, especially for most users on ChatGPT’s ‘Free’ plan, which uses the older, more limited GPT-4o model rather than o1.
From a content creation perspective, whether DeepSeek is better than ChatGPT is, for now at least, only a matter of personal preference, so if you’re curious, give it a try. If not, don’t panic – ChatGPT is still more than good enough for most purposes.
Is there cause for concern?
The release of DeepSeek has pushed underlying concerns around privacy, censorship and access to information in the AI industry further into the public discourse, and this presents some challenges for content creators.
Sensibly, both ChatGPT and DeepSeek have been trained to provide incredibly neutral, diplomatic answers to politically contentious questions such as “Was David Cameron a good Prime Minister?”
There are, however, occasions where this neutrality crosses the line into censorship. The Chinese-developed DeepSeek, for example, either provides heavily censored answers or outright refuses to discuss topics such as the sovereignty of Taiwan, the repression of Uyghurs or the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Amusingly, it’s also remarkably curt on Winnie the Pooh, owing to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s resemblance to the beloved children’s character. As you’d expect, the American-developed ChatGPT provides substantially different information on these subjects, and even occasionally references the Chinese censorship in its responses.
The contrast serves as a stark reminder of the importance for content creators to cross-reference multiple sources and rely on their own expertise, especially when writing about controversial topics. If your chatbot is your only source of information, you’re doing it wrong.
In a similar vein, long-held privacy concerns over the handling of vast amounts of personal data by large tech companies will likely be exacerbated following the release of DeepSeek, particularly in the wake of TikTok’s brief ban in the US due to privacy and security worries. Content creators should make sure to stay informed on the latest cybersecurity and data protection measures before diving into any emerging tech platform, including DeepSeek.
What next for content creators?
While the launch of DeepSeek represents potentially the biggest shift in the AI landscape since the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, the fundamental principles of what makes great AI-enhanced content remain unchanged.
Regardless of the tools at your disposal, creating valuable content that resonates with your target audience still hinges on quality, accuracy, and injecting a human touch with your own personality and knowledge.
LLMs remain incredibly powerful AI assistants for content creators, and thanks to the launch of DeepSeek, there’s now a new competitor ready to push the technology further and challenge the dominance of ChatGPT.
Whether you switch to DeepSeek, stick with ChatGPT or even use a bit of both, the onus remains on creators to keep pushing out authentic, well-researched and impactful content that shines.
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This latest thinking article was written by:
Jack Lenton
Content Manager