DeepSeek ships a faster, cheaper Flash model and opens its web search API

DeepSeek released DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017, an update to last month's Flash model, live on its website, app and API. The company says it scores higher on benchmarks, finishes tasks faster and gives shorter answers than before; those are DeepSeek's own figures. In the same thread it opened its Search and Fetch APIs to everyone, which let AI agents look things up on the live web, at $0.75 per 1,000 calls each. Calls made through DeepSeek's tools inside DeepSeek Harness, Claude Code and Codex are free for DeepSeek API users until billing starts on 31 October.

Why it mattersIf you run agents or chatbots that need current information, this is a cheap way to add web search. Test it on a real task before the free period ends on 31 October, and compare the answers with the model you use today.

How we knowCompany figures are labelled as their own claims; anything we couldn't verify is labelled as a report or a claim.