The rapid rise of Chinese start-up DeepSeek, a low-cost AI model, shocked many and turned the world of artificial intelligence upside down. But OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wasn’t “surprised at all”. Speaking on The Times Tech Podcast, Mr Altman admitted he didn’t anticipate the exact timing of DeepSeek’s arrival but was prepared for competition.
“We knew that at some point, we would get more serious competitors and models that were very capable, but you don’t know when you wake up any given morning that that’s going to be the morning,” he said. “So it’s like, it is not surprising at all that it happened. Surprising, it happened that day, I guess.”
Praising DeepSeek’s product strategy, he said they did “some nice work.”
“I think there’s also some nice pieces of product work, like showing the chain of thought was clearly something people wanted,” he said.
Mr Altman is currently attending the AI Action Summit in Paris. The summit, hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron, is expected to bring together world leaders and top tech executives to discuss AI governance. However, there are concerns over AI development in China, particularly regarding security risks.
He acknowledged that AI models would likely differ across regions due to geopolitical factors, pointing out the contrast between democratic and authoritarian approaches.
Mr Altman also spoke about OpenAI’s new tool, Deep Research, designed for complex, multi-step online research. He estimated it could handle “about 5 per cent of all tasks in the economy today.”
Launched in Britain last week for “pro” tier subscribers, the AI agent is already handling 5 per cent of economic tasks, including financial analysis and product comparisons.
Sam Altman also suggested that artificial general intelligence (AGI) could arrive within Donald Trump’s second term, ending in 2028. AGI refers to AI systems that surpass human performance across all cognitive tasks.
Launched last month, DeepSeek almost instantly shook the industry, leading to questions about the dominance of US-based firms like OpenAI. The Chinese start-up’s introduction rattled the AI market, particularly after its chatbot demonstrated capabilities comparable to ChatGPT despite being developed at a fraction of OpenAI’s reported multi-billion-dollar investment. Its performance led to a dip in US tech stocks and reignited debates about China’s imminent dominance in the global AI arena.