On August 21, DeepSeek released its first vision-capable model, pricing image processing at a fraction of what industry leaders charge — a move that quietly redraws the economics of AI agent development. By capping token consumption per image and targeting high-throughput workflows rather than casual use, the company is not merely competing on price but proposing a different philosophy: that visual understanding should be a default capability, not a rationed luxury. Released alongside a native update to its open-source agent framework, the launch signals DeepSeek's ambition to build not just a