Did you expect the week of January 27th to start off with a sharp drop of over $100B+ in Wall Street stocks? For news outlets to cover a seemingly unknown artificial intelligence organization with great intensity? To start comparing the AI race to Sputnik or an arms race?

Source: TradingView

So Many More Questions About the Media Reaction

Only six days after President Trump took office, United States newsrooms, businesspeople, and consumers turn their attention to DeepSeek, a relatively unheard of but allegedly very successful and cost-effective artificial intelligence company and a tidal wave of conversation emerged.

In the Big Valley community, many asked: How expansive was the coverage? Who is talking about DeepSeek and its impact on the U.S. AI market? Who is being touted as an expert? Who are the journalists writing about DeepSeek? Is the conversation dying? How are the narratives being framed?

What do I—as a business person, a marketer, an AI user, a member of the technology community, a researcher, a general consumer—need to know? Should I adopt DeepSeek? Is the company reputable?

To start to answer these questions and make an initial effort to contextualize the media relation, Big Valley’s Market Intelligence team conducted a quick, high-level investigation to understand the rapid acceleration of DeepSeek as a potential AI kingpin.

Let’s take a Look

DeepSeek released a model that prompted analysts to rethink and readjust their AI strategies, leading to an intense drop in the US stock market. Some analysts estimate that the stock drop of at least $100B+. As news covered the stock drop, many outlets began turning attention to “what is DeepSeek” and “why did the organization shake the US stock market.”

Coverage peaked on January 28 at 21.9K. The DeepSeek coverage increased 1,741% from Jan 26 to Jan 27. As of late Friday afternoon, DeepSeek generated roughly 75K pieces of coverage from top outlets like TradingView (650+ articles), AP (400+ articles), and The Economic Times (300+ articles).

• DeepSeek garnered 19K more news mentions than Elon Musk in the same six-day period.
• DeepSeek generated more coverage than the Dodgers and Yankees did combined during their World Series week in 2024 (a difference of over 10K).

A quick look at top narratives:

• Stock Market Impact: DeepSeek’s rise triggered a major tech stock drop, including Nvidia losing nearly $600 billion in market value, the largest in U.S. history. Other semiconductor and tech companies also faced declines.
  • Some companies were able to benefit on the news, such as ASML which experienced a stock surge given an increased demand for AI chips.
• AI Efficiency: DeepSeek claims its models are 30x cheaper to run than U.S. competitors, potentially making AI more accessible and scalable.
  • This raised questions from companies like OpenAI, industry leaders such as Elon Musk, and even government officials as to how this technology was developed and the legal and ethical implications.
• Cyberattack: DeepSeek suffered a cyberattack after its AI assistant became the top free app on the U.S. Apple App Store, leading to website crashes and paused user sign-ups.
  • Industry Reactions: Some experts view DeepSeek as a game-changer, while others think the market overreacted and expect stock prices to recover.
  • Microsoft CEO said this development could be a “win” for the future of AI development, however has been put in a position to reassure his own investors of this.
  • Sam Altman called the new technology “impressive,” seemingly welcoming a competitor into the market.
• Geopolitical & Strategic Implications: Some called this a “Sputnik moment” for AI, raising concerns about China’s AI leadership and its global impact. However, only 6% of coverage mentioned or referred to the DeepSeek AI event as a Sputnik.
  • Marc Andreessen, cofounder of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, was a heavy commentator on the technology and investment implications of the incident, calling DeepSeek “one of the most amazing and impressive breakthroughs I’ve ever seen.”
  • Concerns have arisen of what this means for US cybersecurity given such a quick market impact and perceived vulnerabilities.

The interest in DeepSeek was echoed on social, though the commentary ranged from stock coverage to ironically commenting on the alleged double standard toward training AI models, calling DeepSeek more efficient and saying goodbye to ChatGPT.

• The top social posts generated over 150K engagements, including comments to likes, saves, and reposts.
• The most engaging social post received over 159K likes, 14K reposts and 358 comments.
• Although there were over 2M+ X posts, only around 200K (12%) were original posts from X posts. What does this mean? X looked like a repost echo chamber.

Some top narratives:

• Stock coverage specifically drove social conversation, with many discussing the dramatic drop in Nvidia and other U.S. tech stocks, terms like “free fall” and “panic mode” were widely used.
• Other discussions centered on AI development and cost, particularly its implications for the future of AI in the U.S., and concerns among major developers about a Chinese company achieving such advancements. Some users also referenced the recent TikTok ban, questioning whether DeepSeek should face similar restrictions.
• Social Coverageafter the initial stock market plunge, showing users were not interested in the updates to the story to the same degree traditional media was.