Microsoft has officially prohibited its employees from using the DeepSeek app, citing serious concerns about data privacy and the potential spread of Chinese government propaganda.
The announcement came directly from Microsoft president and vice chairman Brad Smith during a U.S. Senate hearing, marking the first time the company publicly confirmed such a restriction.
Smith explained that Microsoft is not only banning the use of DeepSeek internally but has also chosen not to list the application in its app store. He pointed to the app’s storage of user data on servers in China, where it becomes subject to local laws that may require compliance with Chinese intelligence operations. Furthermore, Smith expressed concern about how DeepSeek’s answers could be manipulated to align with Chinese state narratives.
DeepSeek, which rose to prominence earlier this year, is known for heavily censoring sensitive topics and aligning its responses with Chinese regulations. Despite the internal ban, Microsoft has previously allowed DeepSeek’s underlying AI model, known as R1, to be hosted on its Azure cloud platform. However, Smith emphasized that offering the model is not the same as endorsing or distributing the official app.
Because DeepSeek is open source, developers can download the model, run it on their own infrastructure, and use it without transferring data back to China. Still, this setup doesn’t eliminate all concerns, particularly around the model’s potential to generate misinformation or write insecure code.
Smith also revealed that Microsoft engineers had intervened in the DeepSeek model to mitigate what he called “harmful side effects,” although he did not provide specifics on how the modifications were made. Microsoft noted in earlier statements that the version made available through Azure underwent extensive safety evaluations and red teaming before deployment.
Although DeepSeek competes with Microsoft’s own AI chat assistant, Copilot, Smith stressed that Microsoft’s decision wasn’t about protecting its own products. Other chat-based AI competitors, such as Perplexity, remain available in the Microsoft app store. However, Google’s Gemini chatbot and Chrome browser were not found in the store’s listings.
