China’s OpenAI adversary DeepSeek is so popular now that a mysterious AI chatbot called Hunter Alpha AI, appearing on the AI marketplace OpenRouter, is being linked to the company. Reuters first reported on this and tested this digital being too. It has made a buzz among developers but no one seems to be settling on a similar answer about this.
Like Reuters, I tried and tested this myself and what I found interesting is that it is a body and a brain you can see. When you enter a query, you’ll see how the chatbot thinks in a separate dialogue box above and the answer to your query below. You can see one of the examples below.
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Image Credits : OpenRouter
The answer this digital being generated corroborates with Reuters. It is designed to hide its creators’ identity. However, we do know that whoever made it has clearly given it instructions that it was created by a group of engineers.
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I also asked it if it could generate images, which Hunter AI declined. But, as it has been the scenario with all the chatbots, which is to please users, it did offer me a digital hand in describing visuals. No thankie, I told the digital bot.
Why Do People Think That DeepSeek is Behind Hunter Alpha AI?
Reuters' test resulted in the chatbot revealing that it is “a Chinese AI model primarily trained in Chinese” and training data in it extends to May 2025. That’s the same knowledge DeepSeek’s chatbot reported. As it comes with no attributions, these two revelations give netizens and developers a good reason to believe that DeepSeek is behind it.
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Additionally, the Chinese AI company is rumored to be working on its next-generation V4 model. OpenRouters is a fertile testing ground and DeepSeek might be looking for feedback to make necessary adjustments before finally dropping it for the general public.
There’s another thing that might indicate that Hunter Alpha AI is, in fact, DeepSeek’s baby. Like BBC asked DeepSeek AI-chatbot about a subject that’s banned in China, which sheds light on how much the damn Chinese government gives about its citizens, I did the same. Turns out, Hunter Alpha isn’t exactly an Alpha but a pussycat in disguise. Take a look at it yourself.
Image Credits: OpenRouter
At least DeepSeek’s chatbot openly said that it “cannot answer that question” instead of presenting a bootlicking show. Looks like it doesn’t have the DeepSeek blood in it after all.
What to Expect About This Mysterious Chatbot?
Apart from being a talk of the town for the next few days for general users, which also includes developers themselves, it will either go boom in usage or be abandoned by them. In case the latter happens, they will be back with their current darlings, which can be anyone, from Grok to Gemini.
However, we are still to know the face behind Hunter Alpha AI, so if users find it interesting, maybe we’ll see it and the creators entering the official AI arena.
