What DeepSeek's recent release means for the Industry and you

Unless you've been living under a rock, you would have heard about the Chinese company DeepSeek, which recently released its V3 and R1 models.

Politics aside, here’s what I think this release will mean for the industry.

If you want the short version, it's this:

None of this actually matters to the average person.

But... more competition + another open-source player = faster AI innovation, more affordable AI, and less reliance on the very small number of closed, "black-box" frontier labs (i.e., OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, etc.).

Another Open-Source Player in the Game

AI models on the market generally fall into two categories: open-source and closed-source.

OpenAI, for example, is closed-source. They don’t publish the technology or underlying models that power ChatGPT or their APIs. This means OpenAI (and other closed-source AI providers) could, in theory, shut down, block access, or significantly raise prices whenever they want. While traditional market forces might keep them in check, there’s still a high level of uncertainty.

Imagine if you built your business processes or SaaS product around a closed-source AI provider, and one day they decide to double the price or make changes that disrupt your business.

With open-source models, you have the option to self-host, ensuring that your AI remains available, costs only what you pay in cloud fees, and won’t change unless you decide to update it.

More Geopolitical Diversity

One interesting aspect of AI is that governments worldwide are scrambling to introduce legislation and regulations for the industry.

The more diverse AI providers are geopolitically, the less risk we, as AI consumers, face from heavy regulation, government control, or outright restrictions.

For example, if the EU rolls out strict AI regulations that limit how AI can be developed, that won't stop AI labs in the U.S. or China, which aren't bound by those same regulations.

A more diverse AI market means no single government or country can dominate or control the industry.

Ultimately, This Doesn't Matter to the Average AI Consumer

The AI industry is slowly shifting to a "who cares" mentality regarding what powers a given tool or app.

Most of us don’t want (or need) to know what AI model is behind our automatic email reply drafter.

As AI consumers, we just want our tools to be smarter, easier to use, and to save us time—we don’t care how that happens.

Do you care whether Instagram’s API is written in Python or Node.js?
Do you care whether your cute pet photos are hosted on Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud Platform?

Probably not.

And that’s exactly why this latest release from DeepSeek, while exciting for the AI industry, won’t mean much to the average user.