In late January, DeepSeek claimed that it built its own foundation model for less than $6 million. The response from investors to this news was brutal and swift. The price of Nvidia (NVDA) stock plunged 17% on January 27,

Rather than understanding DeepSeek’s R1 as a watershed moment, leaders should think of it as a signal of where the AI landscape is right now — and a harbinger of what’s to come. They should consider five lessons: 1) we’re moving from models that recognize patterns to those that can reason,