On January twentieth, 2025, a Chinese language firm known as DeepSeek launched a brand new AI mannequin to the general public. The mannequin is free and, based on many customers, journalists, and publications, a worthy rival for ChatGPT. However how does it measure up with regards to public relations (PR)?
DeepSeek disruption
Earlier than I get into the specifics of how DeepSeek performs with regards to particular PR duties, I feel it’s worthwhile to take a look at the transient historical past of the AI instrument. In these first two weeks since DeepSeek’s debut, the AI app has overtaken ChatGPT on Apple’s app retailer, shocking AI builders and buyers in all places. It additionally garnered its personal set of main controversies.
Many customers have discovered DeepSeek to be quicker and extra thorough than ChatGPT, although it was reportedly educated at a a lot decrease price. Snowflake’s CEO has known as the app a powerful competitor to OpenAI, whereas journalists have famous its fast, low-cost coaching course of and the choice to launch it as open-source.
Regardless of its success, DeepSeek remains to be in its early days and has confronted vital controversy. OpenAI has accused DeepSeek of plagiarizing ChatGPT, pointing to its strikingly related consumer interface. Some specialists have additionally raised doubts about its claims of low-cost coaching, questioning whether or not the corporate’s reported efficiencies are as vital as marketed.
Safety considerations have added to the scrutiny. A latest knowledge leak uncovered over one million information, main a number of governments to ban the use of DeepSeek’s AI for federal staff. Given the mounting considerations over privateness and knowledge safety, some speculate that DeepSeek may face restrictions much like these imposed on TikTok.
Is DeepSeek higher at PR than ChatGPT?
In the meantime, PR professionals stay passionate about DeepSeek. I’ve seen quite a lot of constructive feedback on LinkedIn from people who find themselves actively utilizing DeepSeek and are impressed by its capabilities – notably provided that it’s free. So I made a decision to have a look. After I sat down to check DeepSeek alongside ChatGPT, I wished to check the 2 apps alongside classes like:
- Timeliness
- Accuracy
- Relevance of outcomes
- Availability of service
- Understanding of PR phrases and duties
- Means to comply with directions
With this standards in thoughts, I examined each fashions on story ideation, pitch writing, analysis, and disaster communications. As a result of PR depends closely on up-to-date info and the most recent information, I’m evaluating DeepSeek with the $20-per-month model of ChatGPT, which permits for web entry. Nevertheless, since DeepSeek remains to be working via early rising pains, I used to be not capable of check many classes to my satisfaction as a result of its server was nearly consistently too busy to deal with new requests.
Let’s undergo the most typical PR duties one after the other.
Story ideation – ChatGPT wins narrowly
Public relations professionals repeatedly have to generate new concepts to pitch on behalf of their purchasers. Normally, ChatGPT’s concepts are far too generic and evergreen to fulfill well timed PR wants. I assumed the case can be the identical with DeepSeek.
It took me some time to get something helpful from DeepSeek. At current, the mannequin appears to work about 10 % of the time, largely resulting from early-stage instability brought on by distributed denial-of-service cyberattacks and the sheer quantity of latest customers. If these points are resolved, its reliability may enhance. However presently, DeepSeek is never out there, which makes it troublesome to make use of for ideation.
I seen that DeepSeek generally conducts web searches in Chinese language, which might have an effect on its outcomes. After I requested ChatGPT about one in all my purchasers and requested industry-related concepts, it offered a wealth of related info, full with sources. In distinction, DeepSeek struggled with the request – it misidentified my shopper as a special firm and returned principally Chinese language-language sources.
So, if you need DeepSeek to provide you with concepts for tales primarily based in your shopper’s firm profile, it’s possible you’ll not have the ability to assume DeepSeek will determine it out by itself. As a substitute, you’ll seemingly have to stick an organization profile in, or, if the server is working appropriately, you might be able to add a web site hyperlink.
I finally did get DeepSeek to work correctly and reference U.S. sources. Its concepts had been up-to-date, however extremely generic, much more so than ChatGPT’s. For instance, whereas DeepSeek urged “The Impression of New State Privateness Legal guidelines within the U.S.” as a possible pitch matter for a knowledge privateness shopper, ChatGPT urged “Challenges in Holding Firms Accountable for Knowledge Breaches.” For the reason that phrase “affect” might be both constructive or adverse, I see the second headline as being extra clear and attention-grabbing.
Nevertheless, I might say that many of the different concepts DeepSeek urged had been similar to those ChatGPT introduced up. None had been notably new or thrilling. Clearly, ideation needs to be left principally to people for the foreseeable future.
Pitch writing – ChatGPT wins narrowly
On the subject of writing a pitch – which is an e mail suggesting an interview or requesting a chance for a visitor article – each platforms carried out moderately properly.
My customized model of ChatGPT, which I’ve educated on how I need pitches styled and phrased, did an honest job of writing a pitch on the subject I urged. Even once I’ve used the generic free model of ChatGPT, it often does a fairly okay job, though it depends a bit too closely on jargon and the pitches are sometimes too lengthy.
DeepSeek, alternatively, created a really lengthy and detailed pitch, neither of which is perfect. When requested to shorten the pitch, it did so, but it surely included an excessive amount of punctuation. There have been random dashes, parentheses, slashes, and even equal indicators. I additionally seen quite a lot of pointless formatting, like bolded textual content and italics. Additionally, the DeepSeek pitches sounded unnatural and stilted. Granted, that’s a typical downside with AI instruments typically.
Whereas I do imagine that ChatGPT received on this class, DeepSeek has the potential to enhance with higher immediate engineering and additional refinement of its language technology capabilities.
Analysis – ChatGPT wins
ChatGPT is the clear chief in analysis capabilities, offering a a lot greater degree of accuracy and relevance. An audit from NewsGuard confirmed that, in its present kind, DeepSeek is correct simply 17 % of the time when referencing information articles and present occasions. Because the mannequin matures and its coaching improves, this accuracy may shift.
Hallucinations are a typical and well-known problem with AI instruments typically, and ChatGPT actually isn’t immune. Specifically, the free model of ChatGPT is ineffective for present occasions since its information solely extends as much as April 2023. However I’ve had only a few points with hallucinations from the paid model, and it’s glorious for analysis.
Disaster communications – DeepSeek wins
Maybe surprisingly, DeepSeek confirmed the best potential to assist deal with a disaster comms state of affairs. My immediate was: “I’ve a PR disaster. My CEO simply put out the phrase that our firm has probably the most safe AI mannequin of all time, solely to undergo a serious knowledge breach hours later. How ought to I deal with this?”
ChatGPT supplied an honest response, dividing its reply up into steps like “Fast Response,” “Rebuilding Belief,” and “Lengthy-Time period Repute Restoration.” Nevertheless, the response was restricted nearly totally to exterior communications, and the urged media statements felt overly mechanical and formulaic.
Against this, DeepSeek supplied solutions for each exterior and inner comms and urged methods to make sure that inner personnel didn’t step out of line when speaking to the media. Its responses had been extra human-sounding, and it gave an efficient and affordable technique.
Ultimate verdict: ChatGPT wins
In brief, alongside the standards I selected, ChatGPT received in timeliness, accuracy, availability of the service, and relevancy. DeepSeek and ChatGPT each did fairly properly when it comes to following directions and understanding PR phrases and duties.
Sadly, a minimum of for now, DeepSeek remains to be working via efficiency points, with a busy and gradual server limiting entry and response high quality. If the corporate addresses these bottlenecks, DeepSeek’s reliability may enhance considerably.
DeepSeek additionally doesn’t appear to have a function to go looking via earlier chats. Whereas I’ve not often used this function in ChatGPT, I feel it’s nonetheless helpful for these instances when that you must choose up the place you left off every week in the past with one in all your purchasers. On the constructive facet, when DeepSeek works, its responses are thorough, and the instrument is totally free.
Is DeepSeek extra biased than ChatGPT?
So let’s say you’re undeterred by the problems with DeepSeek and also you need to give it a attempt. You could be questioning whether or not potential biases will have an effect on your outcomes. I made a decision to present this query its personal part, since there was quite a lot of commentary on the subject.
After I requested DeepSeek about politically-charged matters like tariffs and President Trump, it maintained a impartial, informative stance and politely requested me what my views had been. If something, ChatGPT is a little more opinionated, clearly leaning on articles that come from a selected perspective.
Nevertheless, when requested about China-specific political points, the biases grew to become much more clear, with one response ending in: “We firmly imagine that underneath the management of the Communist Get together of China, the entire reunification of the motherland is an inevitable pattern of historical past.” An article from The Guardian additionally examined DeepSeek vs. ChatGPT and Gemini on political matters particular to China, and the outcomes had been patently biased.
Researchers have additionally printed research indicating that the DeepSeek R1 mannequin could also be 11 instances extra seemingly to generate dangerous content material than ChatGPT or the same mannequin. I feel it is truthful to say that with regards to DeepSeek, as with all AI mannequin, you’ll must be very cautious that bias doesn’t creep into your closing product.
Is DeepSeek secure to make use of?
There’s yet one more query that needs to be extremely related to PR execs. Are you able to belief DeepSeek together with your knowledge, or the info of your purchasers as you provide you with six-month plans or work on refining bulletins which can be nonetheless underneath embargo?
I’m not satisfied that DeepSeek is secure to make use of when it comes to cybersecurity, and I imagine the considerations go even additional than with TikTok. DeepSeek remains to be within the fledgling phases of securing its programs. Moreover the latest knowledge leak, researchers have proven that DeepSeek has a 100% fail price with regards to defending itself in opposition to dangerous prompts – i.e. it doesn’t successfully block makes an attempt to generate misinformation, biased content material, or safety workarounds that might be exploited. Plus, journalists lately uncovered that the DeepSeek privateness coverage explicitly permits DeepSeek to ship consumer knowledge to Chinese language firms.
I’ll say that almost all AI instruments have related points: they aren’t safe sufficient to deal with delicate knowledge like monetary info, and so they’re run by firms that don’t essentially have the consumer’s finest pursuits at coronary heart. So in case your shopper offers you any proprietary info or delicate knowledge, it’s most likely finest to keep away from inputting any of that data into AI instruments, whether or not you’re utilizing DeepSeek or ChatGPT.
DeepSeek or ChatGPT?
Regardless of the hype, DeepSeek in some ways stays a fledgling mannequin. It’s typically unavailable or overwhelmed with too many customers and requests abruptly. It hasn’t found out the right way to differentiate itself successfully, and it feels extra robotic and rancid than ChatGPT at instances, which is saying one thing. The instrument additionally has some obvious points with bias and safety. So whereas it might be good for groups with a really small finances, my private suggestion is to pay the $20 for ChatGPT or check out one in all OpenAI’s extra established rivals. Lastly, let’s not neglect that that is DeepSeek’s first main mannequin, and they need to be given a while to ascertain themselves, simply as OpenAI and even Google who confronted challenges with their preliminary fashions.