Artificial intelligence (AI) is evolving into increasingly intelligent systems and rapidly entering our lives. The maturity of technology and the push for an open-source ecosystem have prompted major model vendors to join the ranks of those offering free services. What is the business logic behind this seemingly "losing money to gain attention" approach?

Why Has "Free Access" Become a New Trend in the Industry?

From Baidu's Ernie Bot to OpenAI's GPT-5 and Google's latest AI model suite, leading companies in the domestic and international AI sectors are following DeepSeek's model by offering free access to all users.

Experts explain that free access has become a new trend in the AI large model industry for three main reasons:

1. Technological Advancements and Cost Reductions: With improvements in large model training techniques and hardware efficiency, the costs of training and inference have significantly decreased, allowing vendors to provide more powerful services at lower costs.
2. Competitive Pressure: The trend towards open-source and free access forces leading vendors to break their closed ecosystems to attract more users and developers, preventing competitors from surpassing them. Vendors can no longer rely on traditional paid models, especially when open-source models can deliver 80% of commercial functionality at just 1/10 of the cost.
3. Market Capture and User Engagement: By offering free access, vendors can quickly attract a large number of users, accumulate data, and subsequently optimize their models through data feedback, thereby establishing user loyalty and solidifying their market positions.

How Will those Development Companies Profit from Free Access?

When technological leaders can provide higher-performance services at lower costs, "free" becomes a powerful tool for solidifying market positions. Experts explain that while development companies offer free services, they can achieve profitability through several avenues:

1. Value-Added Services: After providing basic functions for free, companies can charge for enterprise-level solutions, customized services, API interfaces, and other value-added services.
2. Data and Traffic Monetization: By accumulating a large amount of user data and traffic, companies can monetize through advertising, user data analysis, and other methods.
3. Compliance Value-Added Services: With the strengthening of AI regulations, vendors may offer compliance-related value-added services, such as data traceability and security audits, to meet regulatory requirements and charge additional fees.

How Will Open Source Sharing Drive the Future Development of the AI Industry?

Experts indicate that the introduction of free models has ushered the AI industry into a new development phase. On one hand, free offerings will attract more users and developers, promoting the proliferation and application of AI technology. On the other hand, this will also lead to a new competitive landscape, encouraging other companies to follow suit or explore new business models.

As technology continues to advance and costs decrease, how will the commercial operating model for large AI models evolve in the future?

This will manifest in several key areas:

1. Accelerated Technological Innovation: Open-source models allow more developers and companies to participate in technological innovation, reducing redundant work and driving rapid advancements.
2. Lowered Barriers to Entry: Open source enables more small enterprises and independent developers to use and modify AI technologies, promoting technology adoption, especially among SMEs and academia.
3. Strengthened Cross-Industry Collaboration: Shared open-source technologies can facilitate cooperation between different industries, helping AI technologies to be applied in more practical scenarios and thereby enhancing overall industry development.
4. Optimized Ecosystem: Through open-source sharing, more companies can establish partnerships based on unified standards, promoting the evolution of the entire industry ecosystem and creating a healthier and more diverse technological development environment.

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