Will DeepSeek have the highest OpenRouter market share the week of October 19?

Analysis

The most concrete fact is the official OpenRouter chart for the week beginning Oct 12, 2026. It shows DeepSeek leading at 24.4% of text requests, with Google second at 19.7%. That is a different week from the one that decides this question. The deciding source was read on Oct 20, but it does not yet publish the figure this question turns on. Its usage data runs only through Oct 19, so the week of Oct 19 to Oct 25 is still in progress. The lean toward DeepSeek rests on persistence. A separate news report on the preceding complete week put DeepSeek at 24.5%, ahead of OpenAI at 18.6% and Google at 17.8%. Those figures differ slightly from the official chart and come from a report, not the chart itself. Both readings point the same way, with a gap of roughly five points. A sceptic should note that a lead in one week does not guarantee the next. Rankings can shift quickly. Reports dated Oct 17 and Oct 18 describe DeepSeek shipping a refreshed Flash model at unchanged prices and opening a search API, which may help usage, though no source ties that to request share. A report dated Oct 19 says US civilian agencies have been ordered to remove DeepSeek. Nothing supplied links that order to OpenRouter traffic. The thing to watch is the first OpenRouter chart that covers the week beginning Oct 19. If DeepSeek's lead over Google or OpenAI narrows sharply there, the picture changes.