Extract from Leonard J. Dietzen III and Derek Dzwonkowski’s article “The Time Is Now for Employers to Assess Risk of Employees’ Use of DeepSeek”
DeepSeek is a new generative artificial intelligence (AI) company based in China that made a big splash in the news because of the dramatic technological efficiency in its DeepSeek-V3 model compared to the models by rivals OpenAI, Meta and Google. DeepSeek-V3 became the most downloaded app across the world in Apple’s app stores less than one week after its release, including in the United States. Employers should be aware of this new AI and how its use could impact their companies.
Even before DeepSeek upended the AI market, companies should have been developing and refining AI policies for their employees because using any open AI tool presents a host of ethical, legal, quality-control and data security risks. When not sufficiently managed by humans, an AI tool can lead users unwittingly to subject their companies to regulatory mistakes, discrimination claims and intellectual property issues, among other potential problems.
These concerns are heightened when using AI companies based out of China—or what the U.S. government refers to as a “country of concern” relating to national security technologies and products. (Note that the Biden administration made this declaration in October 2024; the new Trump administration may take a different view.)
