'Necessity drives innovation': Perplexity AI CEO Aravind Srinivas applauds DeepSeek's triumph over ChatGPT on Apple App Store

The buzz around DeepSeek R1, China’s latest AI model, continues to grow, with its recent milestone of becoming the #1 app on the App Store, beating ChatGPT in the US. Among the many reactions to its success, Aravind Srinivas, the CEO of Perplexity AI, took to X to congratulate DeepSeek on their achievement.

In his post, Srinivas highlighted the significance of DeepSeek’s accomplishment, especially in surpassing the popularity of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

“Congrats to @deepseek_ai for getting to #1 on the App Store. For a while, it wasn’t clear who would beat ChatGPT for the first time,” Srinivas wrote.

He also reflected on Perplexity AI’s own journey, mentioning that his company had previously reached #8 on the App Store but hadn’t been able to dethrone ChatGPT. 

Srinivas continued to show his enthusiasm for DeepSeek’s future. “Look forward to using all their models for search, assistant, and agents this year,” he added, signalling an interest in the potential applications of DeepSeek’s technology.

In an interaction with CNBC, Srinivas also explained what led to the creation of DeepSeek. He said, "Necessity drives innovation. To work around hardware constraints, they’ve developed more efficient solutions. It’s like being forced to build something top-notch without access to ideal resources. As long as it’s mathematically possible, you can always find more efficient approaches."

He further added, "China has succeeded in creating a highly efficient model that’s competitive with some of the best closed-source models in the U.S., and they’ve open-sourced it. This innovation could give them an edge in the long term."

Why this matters

DeepSeek’s rise to the top of the App Store marks a significant moment in the competitive world of artificial intelligence. For months, OpenAI’s ChatGPT has dominated public attention as the go-to AI tool, but DeepSeek’s success suggests a growing appetite for alternatives.

DeepSeek’s rapid ascent is sparking discussions about the evolution of AI tools and their global influence. As the AI landscape becomes more diverse, companies like DeepSeek are proving that there’s room for innovation beyond the major US players like OpenAI and Google.