OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman said he believes his company should consider giving away its AI models, a potentially seismic strategy shift in the same week China’s DeepSeek has upended the artificial-intelligence industry.

Altman’s about-face from OpenAI’s tough stance on China reflects how Hangzhou-based start-up DeepSeek upended the global AI industry.

Sam Altman, head of OpenAI which develops ChatGPT, has laid out plans for the next versions of its language models. As the artificial intelligence industry races forward, the announcement is a shot across the bow after Chinese AI chatbot, Deepseek R1 showed up in the industry.

OpenAI boss Sam Altman has acknowledged that Chinese AI firm DeepSeek did some “nice work” in the creation of the chatbot now rivalling his firm’s ChatGPT. Mr Altman said he was going to meet the competing AI firm,

In contrast with OpenAI, which follows a closed model, DeepSeek’s AI model discloses its full chain of reasoning in an open source model. Altman called DeepSeek’s R1 model “impressive” during a short thread on X.com early last week.

OpeniAI CEO Sam Altman admitted the company's goals have shifted in the wake of DeepSeek staking its claim to the AI industry in a recent Reddit AMA.

As competition heats up, Sam Altman has announced plans to merge OpenAI's scattered AI models into a single system that "just works."

Altman admitted that OpenAI was "on the wrong side of history" when it came to AI and open source and said he wants to fix that.

The CEO of the ChatGPT creator also says he is going to meet the Chinese start-up, thought not at the AI Action Summit in Paris.