The AI race is heating up, and two players—OpenAI and DeepSeek—are taking wildly different approaches: Competing vs. Catalyzing. Let’s dive into how their strategies are shaping the future of AI:
– OpenAI’s Revenue Explosion: From $3.7B (2024) to $12.6B (2025)—a jaw-dropping 240% revenue surge, driven almost entirely by its flagship consumer product; ChatGPT
– Operator: Disruption or Danger? OpenAI’s launch of its Operator AI agent—a tool that fetches, integrates, and analyzes data across platforms—immediately overshadowed countless startups building similar AI assistants. Many startups were rendered obsolete overnight.
Why is it dangerous?
– Consumer-First Focus: OpenAI’s consumer product; ChatGPT gets priority access to superior models, leaving API-dependent startups with weaker tools.
– Resource Shift: As OpenAI builds consumer-facing AI agents, will its core models stagnate, pushing startups to alternatives like DeepSeek?
– B2B Expansion? Will OpenAI move beyond APIs into the application layer, directly competing in verticals with its own clients?
DeepSeek’s Countermove
– Zero-Cost Access: Forget licensing fees. DeepSeek offers free access to its cutting-edge tech, empowering startups to reinvest savings into R&D or proprietary data.
– Super Reliable: R3 model produces superior results quantitatively and qualitatively. It’s not anymore the world of the higher the price the better the quality. It is actually the other way around.
At InVitro Capital, here’s what we always tell founders:
– Abandon Generic Use Cases: Build real-world Vertical fully autonomous AI solutions
– Hyper-Specialize: Target specific industries with tailored data (e.g., healthcare or legal -not “one-size-fits-all”)
– Diversify LLMs: Leverage multiple foundational models to maximize performance, and reduce risk and dependency
The AI revolution isn’t just only about who wins the race at the foundation layer but who and how startups in the application layer will build the future.
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