DeepSeek vs OpenAI

DeepSeek — Foundation Models · Private · $50B valuation · 4 of 4 figures sourced  |  OpenAI — Foundation Models · Private · $852B valuation · 5 of 5 figures sourced

Relationship

Both consumer assistants in one measured market; ChatGPT holds 46.4% while DeepSeek sits under 5% — the incumbent against one of the tail challengers.

5 of 6 capabilitiesShared product typeLarger scaleSourced competitorUse an everyday AI assistant

5 of 6 capabilities — Shares agent orchestration, agentic coding, code generation and 2 more.

Ludbee capability tags · from the product records

Shared product type — Both ship application and model API.

Ludbee product records

Larger scale — OpenAI: $852B valuation, against DeepSeek's $50B valuation.

Ludbee scale figures · valuation, market cap or revenue estimate

Sourced competitor — “Until January, ChatGPT commanded over 50% market share, but by May's end, it had fallen to 46.4% thanks to the rise of Gemini (27.7%) and Claude (10.3%). Other assistants, including Grok, Perplexity, DeepSeek, and Meta AI, have less than 5…”

techcrunch.com · checked 2026-08-25

Use an everyday AI assistant — Rivals on this job — Get answers, writing, search and everyday help from a general-purpose assistant app.

Ludbee needs vocabulary · the scope on the sourced edge

Aligned comparison

FieldDeepSeekOpenAI
Valuation$50B$852B OpenAI has 17× more
Employees1604,500 OpenAI has 28× more
Founded20232015 8 yrs earlier
StatusPrivatePrivate match
CategoryFoundation ModelsFoundation Models match
Stack layerApplication, Developer tool, Model APIAI agent, Agent platform, Application, Model API
HeadquartersHangzhou, ChinaSan Francisco, USA

Capability overlap

Shared · 5

Agent orchestrationAgentic codingCode generationSummarizationText generation

Not verified for OpenAI · 1

Model inference

Recorded for DeepSeek. OpenAI’s product records say nothing either way — a missing record is not a missing capability.

Not verified for DeepSeek · 12

Code reviewData analysisData securityDocument extractionEvaluation and observabilityImage generationPresentation generationSpeech to textText to speechThreat detection and responseSearch answersWorkflow automation

Recorded for OpenAI. DeepSeek’s product records say nothing either way — a missing record is not a missing capability.

Products, side by side

Hand-checked pairing

DeepSeek

Application

DeepSeekApplication

Assistant app for chat, reasoning and code questions, built on DeepSeek's own models.

Model API

DeepSeek API PlatformModel API

API access to DeepSeek's chat and reasoning models.

OpenAI

Application

ChatGPTApplication

Assistant for chat, web search, file analysis and image generation, used in the browser and in desktop and mobile apps; developers can build custom in-chat apps for it via the Apps SDK, built on the Model Context Protocol.

ChatGPT AtlasApplication

OpenAI's agentic web browser. Deprecated on 9 August 2026, with its browser-based agentic capabilities moved into ChatGPT and Codex.

ChatGPT GovApplication

A version of ChatGPT that US government agencies deploy in their own Microsoft Azure commercial or Azure Government cloud, so the agency manages its own security, privacy and compliance.

ChatGPT for ExcelApplication

ChatGPT in the Excel ribbon: builds and edits spreadsheets, formulas and formatting from plain-language requests, answers questions about what is in the workbook, and asks permission before changing it. OpenAI's own page bundles this with a separate ChatGPT for Google Sheets add-in; this record covers the Excel add-in only.

ChatGPT for PowerPointApplication

ChatGPT in the PowerPoint ribbon: creates new slides, rewrites and restructures an existing deck, and turns notes, documents or spreadsheets into presentation-ready content while keeping the output editable in PowerPoint.

ChatGPT for WordApplication

ChatGPT in a Microsoft Word sidebar: drafts, revises and reorganizes the open document from notes or pasted source text, pulling in context from connected apps like Outlook, SharePoint, Google Workspace and Dropbox.

SoraApplication

OpenAI's text-to-video product. The web and app experiences were discontinued on 26 April 2026; the API will be discontinued on 24 September 2026.

Model API

OpenAI APIModel API

Hosted API for OpenAI's text, image, audio and embedding models, billed per token.

No counterpart

DeepSeek sells these in a stack layer with no product recorded for OpenAI yet — nothing on the other side to compare them against.

Developer tool

DeepSeek HarnessDeveloper tool

Open-source framework for building agents from composable plugins, distributed under the MIT license as a developer-preview initiative (install via `npx @deepseek-ai/dsh web` or clone from GitHub).

OpenAI sells these in a stack layer with no product recorded for DeepSeek yet — nothing on the other side to compare them against.

AI agent

CodexAI agent

Coding agent that reads, edits and runs a codebase from the terminal, an IDE extension and the ChatGPT web app.

Agent platform

OpenAI DaybreakAgent platform

OpenAI's cybersecurity offering, bringing together frontier cyber models, Codex Security and partner workflows to find, validate and fix vulnerabilities, with an access-gated Daybreak Red tier for authorised vulnerability research and red teaming.

OpenAI FrontierAgent platform

Enterprise platform for connecting AI agents to systems of record and running them under enterprise identity, access and observability controls.

Open in the browser view