China-based DeepSeek is working on developing a new agentic generative AI model, Bloomberg reports, citing anonymous sources.
Agentic AI is the latest wave of AI technology. AI agents are a kind of digital assistant; they can complete tasks without a lot of human oversight. AI agents can do anything from coding to ordering you a pizza, as my colleague Imad Khan recently tested.
Details about the specifics of the DeepSeek agent model are still fuzzy. An August update to DeepSeek's V3 model was a "first step toward the agent era," according to an X post by the company. Like any AI tool, a future DeepSeek agent's usefulness will be contingent on its availability and price. DeepSeek did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Many AI companies have been investing in agentic AI, releasing ready-made features like ChatGPT Agent and Copilot agents. So it's not surprising to hear that DeepSeek is working on its own version of an AI agent. But it does raise a lot of questions about how that will affect the global AI landscape and ultimately the tools we have access to and use.
DeepSeek threw American AI companies for a loop at the beginning of the year when it released its R1 reasoning model. The AI stunned chatbot users with its behind-the-scenes look at how the machine "thinks" and processes requests. DeepSeek lapped American rivals like OpenAI, Microsoft and Meta with the model, showing it could not only make quality AI models at a fraction of the cost of American companies, but that it can make them more open, too. Tech companies' stocks plummeted, with AI chip-maker Nvidia seeing its market cap drop by $600 billion in a single day.
Beyond showcasing the technical prowess of Chinese models, it also spurred a lot of national security concerns and fueled the desire to win the global AI race. Concerns about data privacy abound with any AI model, but the specific concern with DeepSeek is that American users' data would end up under the control of the Chinese government.
Both the Biden and Trump administrations sought to ensure the US would win the AI race -- that is, have the most advanced AI tech controlled solely by American companies. Chinese models like DeepSeek helped fuel the Trump administration's AI action plan, which proponents claim greenlights AI innovation by removing bureaucratic red tape. Critics worry that it could erode protections for consumers and the environment.
For more, check out what to know about agentic AI on smartphones and the best AI chatbots.