DeepMind vs. OpenAI: What’s the Difference?

DeepMind and OpenAI are companies with similar mission statements and goals. While they share many similarities, they also have unique strengths, providing distinct research areas and a diverse range of tools and technologies. Learn more about DeepMind versus OpenAI, including the history of each organization, standout technology, and current research. 

DeepMind vs. OpenAI

DeepMind and OpenAI are organizations dedicated to researching, advancing, and building artificial intelligence to benefit humanity. DeepMind is a research organization, while OpenAI transitioned from a nonprofit to a for-profit company in 2019. While both companies share similar missions, alongside their own challenges and areas for improvement, they apply their research in different areas. Explore both companies and how their work applies to different fields. 

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What is DeepMind?

DeepMind is a research organization dedicated to building artificial intelligence that benefits humanity while keeping an eye on responsibility for ethical practices. According to its mission statement, DeepMind is “working to create breakthrough technologies that could advance science, transform work, serve diverse communities—and improve billions of people’s lives” [1]. 

Founded in 2010, DeepMind was a breakout star in artificial intelligence with its model Alpha Go, which was capable of defeating a world champion of the popular and difficult-to-master game Go. Today, DeepMind’s most advanced models include Gemini, Veo, and AlphaFold, and the company is working on research projects in biology, geometry, chip design, reinforcement learning, robotics, large language models, and more. 

History of DeepMind

After its organization in 2010 and early success, Google acquired the company in 2014. Since that time, DeepMind has contributed to the field of artificial intelligence with several breakthroughs in research and AI modeling, including the following: 

• AlphaGo: Released in 2015, this AI model beat a Go world champion, a significant advancement considering Go is a challenging game for an AI model to learn. 

• WaveNet: In 2016, DeepMind released this model, which can generate unique and realistic audio files and offer you powerful text-to-speech functionality. 

• AlphaFold: This AI model, released in 2020, can predict the 3D model of a protein structure from amino acid sequences and has many implications for biology and biomedical research. 

DeepMind technologies

Today, the organization offers several products and tools using AI. In addition to tools like the AlphaFold server and the AlphaFold database to help support research, DeepMind offers you five cutting-edge AI models: 

• Gemini: Gemini represents a family of AI models that provide you with access to the most powerful generative AI the organization has developed to date. You can enter a prompt into Gemini, and the model can deliver you a range of information, unique content, and other tools. Gemini can also work with other Google products and services like Google Workspace, Drive, or Docs. 

• Gemma: Gemma represents a family of AI models using the same technology as Gemini but offers public access. 

• Imagen 3: Imagen 3 is the latest iteration of DeepMind’s image generation AI model. You can request an image using a natural language prompt, and the program will deliver a unique, high-quality image. 

• Veo: Veo is a generative AI model that can create high-quality videos. You can ask the model to create cinematic effects like a time-lapse or aerial shot based on the prompts you provide. Natural language processing helps the AI model understand the nuances of your request to deliver video with the correct tone and for consistency. 

• AlphaFold: As you learned above, AlphaFold is an AI model that predicts the 3D model of a protein structure, giving scientists and researchers more insight into how molecules interact. AlphaFold has demonstrated the capability to speed up the research process by months or even years by completing in hours what used to take a team of researchers a much longer period. 

What is OpenAI? 

OpenAI is also a company whose mission is “to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI)—by which we mean highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work—benefits all of humanity” [2]. The company’s mission statement also outlines how it will commit to developing (or helping to develop) AI responsibly, focusing on technology that offers broad benefits. 

OpenAI’s most state-of-the-art products are the OpenAI o1 large language model and GPT-4, the generative pre-trained transformer AI model that powers ChatGPT. The company is also researching advanced language processing, generative modeling for images, audio processing, speech recognition, and more. 

History of OpenAI

OpenAI’s founders began the organization as a nonprofit research company in 2015 and created a limited-profit company to use OpenAI products in commercial ways in 2019. Later that year, OpenAI partnered with Microsoft to accelerate the company’s development. OpenAI released two generative AI models, Dall-E and ChatGPT, that were well received as a breakthrough in generative AI. Despite the popularity of ChatGPT, the company has faced backlash, from copyright and intellectual property concerns to privacy, inner boardroom struggles for power to outsourcing work for low labor costs, and whistleblowers concerned about the ethical guidance of the company. 

OpenAI technologies

OpenAI offers application programming interface (API) services for companies that use OpenAI technology to create AI products and tools. The company’s product for the average consumer is ChatGPT, which can offer you free access as a casual user or a paid subscriptions if you’d like to access premium features. You can use ChatGPT to access the large language model OpenAI o1 and DALL-E 3, OpenAI’s generative image model. 

Criticism of DeepMind and OpenAI

Both DeepMind and OpenAI have been linked to scandal. However, OpenAI has been in the spotlight for negative reasons more often than its Google counterpart, perhaps because it holds the honor of being the first to offer generative AI services to the general public or perhaps due to chaotic leadership and missteps. On a broader level, both companies face criticism because they are working toward the controversial AGI, a field of study dedicated to recreating human-level intelligence through artificial software solutions. 

Neither company has achieved this level of AI, which would allow an AI model to do and perform most tasks that a human could. For example, ChatGPT can’t drive a car, even if scientists have theoretical ideas about how ChatGPT could help an autonomous vehicle understand its passengers. Simple observations such as these demonstrate that no AI model is yet capable of human intelligence. 

However, many people are thinking and writing about the potential ethical concerns of achieving artificial general intelligence. While both OpenAI and DeepMind outline their ethical principles extensively, both companies face scrutiny as artificial intelligence becomes more widely used in industries that impact human lives, like health care, criminal justice, housing, and job applications. 

OpenAI vs. DeepMind

In terms of OpenAI versus DeepMind, the two have many similarities but are also fundamentally different. One area you can observe this is in the products they offer and the people they serve. OpenAI’s products like ChatGPT and DALL-E focus on practical applications of generative AI models that everyone can use, from everyday purposes like writing a letter to more advanced work like data analysis. DeepMind offers products like Gemini that the everyday consumer can use as well. Still, they also offer products like AlphaFold that advance scientific research and drive significant breakthroughs, indirectly benefiting everyone by expanding knowledge and technology. 

Learn about artificial intelligence on Coursera

Both OpenAI and DeepMind are working to advance artificial intelligence in ways that benefit humanity. If you’d like to learn more about artificial intelligence, consider a course on Coursera to help you take the next step. For example, you could enroll in AI For Everyone offered by Deep Learning.AI. Or, you could complete a Specialization such as the ChatGPT: Master Free AI Tools to Supercharge Productivity Specialization offered by Vanderbilt University. This three-course series includes Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT, Advanced Prompt Engineering for Everyone, and OpenAI GPTs: Creating Your Own Custom AI Assistants. 

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AI For Everyone

AI is not only for engineers. If you want your organization to become better at using AI, this is the course to tell everyone--especially your non-technical ...

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ChatGPT: Master Free AI Tools to Supercharge Productivity

Master ChatGPT's Free AI to Excel at Work & Life. Leverage ChatGPT's free AI to excel at planning, project management, writing, data analytics, marketing, social media, machine learning, and more for work and life.

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Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT

ChatGPT and other large language models are going to be more important in your life and business than your smartphone, if you use them right. ChatGPT can ...

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