American users are increasingly turning to Chinese-built AI models, according to a report circulating this week across ABC News, Yahoo Finance, U.S. News & World Report and MyNorthwest under the headline "Cheaper, open and intelligent: Chinese AI models gain ground, as they make inroads in the US."
The pitch, as those outlets frame it, rests on three things: lower cost, open availability, and capability that users find good enough to switch for.
A separate report carried by MSN names the models involved — Kimi and DeepSeek — and says Americans are adopting them as cheaper alternatives that challenge ChatGPT and Claude, the flagship products from OpenAI and Anthropic. That report notes the shift is happening despite the Trump administration's crackdown on China.
That last detail is the tension at the center of the story. US policy has been pushing to restrict Chinese technology, yet the reporting describes American users moving toward Chinese AI anyway — a gap between what Washington is trying to discourage and what individuals and businesses are actually choosing.
The available reporting does not specify how many US users have switched, which sectors are adopting these models, or what the price differences are in dollar terms. It also doesn't detail how the "open" nature of these models works in practice, though openness generally means developers can download and run a model themselves rather than paying to access it through a company's servers.
Why it matters: if cost and open access are enough to pull American users toward Chinese AI models even amid a government crackdown, it suggests the competitive advantage US AI companies have enjoyed is narrower than assumed — and that trade policy may be a weaker lever over AI adoption than price.