Hearts & Minds: Five stages of Grief Silicon Valley style: the DeepSeek response

First, there is the denial. Then comes the anger, followed by bargaining, depression and acceptance. These, of course, are the five stages of grief. Something similar is occurring with the industry response to DeepSeek. The shock of what the Chinese AI company announced induced differing emotions, which are being worked through. They are all there, as if America’s AI had suffered a terrible loss.

Donald Trump reacted immediately by saying it was ‘a wake-up call’ to US tech, which it was. There were declarations of puzzlement from the most directly affected corporations; now we’re seeing annoyance as accusations are made that the reason DeepSeek was able to build an AI model so cheaply was because the start-up was using stolen US IP. That’s been accompanied by dark talk of national security concerns. But there are also claims DeepSeek’s ‘breakthrough’ will prove beneficial, not only for its bigger AI rivals but for everyone else – suddenly artificial intelligence could become a whole lot cheaper. Meanwhile, the markets go on a lurching roller-coaster ride, in which any new piece of analysis or a quote from a leading player or AI sage is seized upon and used to drive stocks up or down.

What is a CEO and their comms team to do, even those not from a US tech giant, caught up in this maelstrom? Take a breath. This is tech, where everything happens at the speed of light or faster, in which instant reactions are expected. Often, they are plain wrong. In a sense, the world does not care – it’s spinning so fast that what you’ve said has been lost and forgotten, the express has moved on to the next one. But it does matter, to your stakeholders, to your employees, investors, customers, partners. They pay closer attention to what you’re saying, they’re looking to you for a lead; they want to know how it affects their company, how it affects them. So slow down. You owe it to them not to put your foot in it, not to overplay and exaggerate. They will study your words for any deeper meaning. Frankly, it’s too soon to say, you simply don’t know, in which case tread cautiously. It’s reasonable, they can see it's early. The end game is some distance away.

Take a leaf out of the China playbook. DeepSeek dropped its bombshell just at the start of the Chinese Lunar New Year. Everything, including comms, is shut for the celebrations.

Chris Blackhurst is one of the UK’s foremost business journalists. He was previously Editor of The Independent and City Editor of the Evening Standard.