DeepSeek: the free Chinese AI assistant and its privacy trade-offs

An assistant with no subscription

Open chat.deepseek.com or the mobile app and you can chat with DeepSeek right away, with no paid tier to unlock. The assistant searches the web, reads files you upload and replies in many languages. It doesn’t generate images. The company behind it, DeepSeek, earns its money mainly from the API it sells to developers.

Two modes, open models

Since the April 24, 2026 announcement, the assistant offers two modes:

• Instant, running DeepSeek-V4-Flash, for quick answers;
• Expert, running DeepSeek-V4-Pro, for reasoning, math and programming.

These models are released as open weights: anyone can download them and run them on their own servers, outside DeepSeek’s infrastructure. That’s an option for companies that want the technology without sending data to China. They come with a one-million-token context window by default. For other open models, see the open-source AI page.

What happens to your data

This is the point that should drive your decision. The privacy policy says personal data, including the content of your chats, is stored in China. You can opt out of training with “Improve the model for everyone” under Data controls, but that doesn’t change where data is stored. No temporary chat mode is documented.

In Europe, that storage raises questions under GDPR. Italy’s Garante blocked the app in January 2025, and Berlin’s authority asked Apple and Google to remove it in June 2025. The situation can differ by country, so look into it before installing. The full text is in DeepSeek’s privacy policy.

In short

DeepSeek gives free access to recent models and is a practical way to test what open-weight AI can do. It suits uses that involve no personal data: brainstorming, public-domain questions, code without secrets. If European hosting matters to you, look at Le Chat by Mistral AI instead.