I tried Deep Research on ChatGPT, and it's like a super smart but whimsical librarian
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Lost in Research
I have always been the kind of person who gets lost in research. Some people scroll social media before bed; I deep dive into archaeological studies of color use and blogs obsessively chronicling the evolution of old TV shows. When OpenAI pitched ChatGPT's new Deep Research feature, it sounded like a dream companion, capable of autonomously conducting real-time web research and compiling detailed reports.
A Peek into Deep Research
Deep Research started as an exclusive feature for ChatGPT Pro, the $200 per month subscription service, but is now available to those paying $20 monthly for ChatGPT Pro, though you only get 10 Deep Research queries a week at this level.
At its core, Deep Research is trying to do what I, and probably many others, already do when we have a question too big for a quick search. Usually, researching something means clicking through multiple sources, separating marketing fluff from useful insights, and resisting the urge to fall into unrelated Wikipedia rabbit holes. Deep Research claims to take all that work off your plate, handing you a neatly formatted report instead.
Comparing AI Tools
And ChatGPT isn’t the only AI trying to tackle this problem. Perplexity has a feature with the same name and broadly similar goals, as does Google Gemini and DeepSeek. Each system has its quirks, but ChatGPT’s Deep Research, at least in theory, aims for something more structured and thoughtful, a full-fledged report instead of a handful of search results.
Testing Deep Research
I decided to put it to the test with three research challenges I thought might be fun. The reports were impressive, but sometimes a bit wandering. Imagine a brilliant but slightly absent-minded librarian who can find you an obscure 18th-century manuscript in under five minutes and occasionally hands you a 20-volume dissertation when you ask for a little beach reading.
