The beginning of 2025 caused turmoil in the tech industry with the disruptive release of DeepSeek — the latest free chatbot app. While the app's arrival caught the US tech companies off guard, forcing a reassessment of their AI strategies, experts shifted their focus to the privacy aspect of this AI chatbot. Is DeepSeek AI truly safe to use? Here's what you need to know before downloading it.

What is DeepSeek AI?

DeepSeek AI is an open-source large language model (LLM) developed by a Chinese artificial intelligence company by the same name. The free DeepSeek AI assistant app, released in January 2025, uses this model and is yet another addition to the market of AI-driven software.

Like most generative AI tools, DeepSeek AI assists its users with text generation, programming, translations, and data analysis using the flexibility of an open-source model.

How does DeepSeek AI work?

DeepSeek AI assistant uses DeepSeek V3 — an advanced open-source LLM capable of processing and generating human-like text. It analyzes user queries, breaks them down into key components, and predicts the most relevant responses based on its training data.

While DeepSeek's operating capabilities are similar to those of its competitors, the Chinese chatbot is already one of the most popular AI solutions. This raises the question: What's so different about DeepSeek compared to its predecessors?

What makes DeepSeek AI different from other AI models?

The DeepSeek V3 model (used in the DeepSeek AI assistant app) rivals its competition (such as GPT-4 and Claude) in efficiency, coding, math, and Chinese language tasks. Its mixture of experts (MoE) architecture allows the app to complete tasks efficiently while also leading in advanced math benchmarks (such as AIME 2024 and MATH-500), indicating strong problem-solving skills. In addition, according to DeepSeek AI, the DeepSeek V3 model excels in competitive programming and software engineering tasks and demonstrates significantly stronger Chinese language comprehension compared to GPT-4 and Claude models.

However, even with its advantages, DeepSeek still has room for improvement. For example, the Chinese LLM seems slightly weaker in basic question answering (SimpleQA) than GPT-4o and Claude 3.5. Moreover, concerns over its censorship of sensitive political topics and questions about data collection have made it a highly debated AI model.

Why is DeepSeek AI gaining attention?

DeepSeek's free, efficient, and powerful AI model is one of the key reasons why the app exploded in the US and the global app stores. The media has also jumped on its rapid rise, with some calling it a game-changer. However, it’s not the only reason DeepSeek is getting attention. Experts are also questioning the app’s intellectual property issues, while discussions about data privacy and political censorship have made the headlines in many respected tech and news outlets.

How DeepSeek AI handles user data

According to the DeepSeek AI privacy policy, the app collects sensitive data, including chat messages, device information (such as device model), and interaction details (for example, system language). Such vast data collection is typical between all major AI models. However, DeepSeek’s collected data is stored on servers in China, which has raised concerns about potential access by the Chinese government.

Cybersecurity experts also believe DeepSeek's data collection practices could lead to misuse or unauthorized access, especially given China's data access laws. Due to such privacy concerns, these doubts have led several countries, such as Taiwan, to initiate investigations or impose bans on using DeepSeek within government departments.