OpenAI’s Deep Research Presents Another Evolutionary Step in LLMs

Over the past few months there has been a lot of talk in AI world about “Agentic AI”,  advanced AI agents that will assist users in conducting work which can draw data from multiple systems and data-sources automatically. OpenAI is among the first to turn this vision into reality.

Following the introduction of ‘Operator’, one of OpenAI’s first Agent AI tools, on 23rd Jan, the company launched ‘Deep Research’ on 2nd Feb. Compared to Operator, Deep Research is more advanced with more autonomy. While Operator helps users gather data from numerous websites, Deep Research goes a step further by acting as a personal research assistant.

Powered by a specialized version of OpenAI’s upcoming o3 model — optimized for web browsing and data analysis — ‘Deep Research’ can search, interpret, and analyse vast amounts of text, images, and PDFs from the internet. It then generates detailed reports with quality comparable to those produced by professional research analysts. The entire process, from submitting a prompt to receiving a completed report, can take as little as 5 to 30 minutes.

However, while ‘Deep Research’ is powerful, it is not without limitations. The agent is still prone to “hallucinations,” occasionally providing inaccurate information or flawed inferences. It may also struggle to distinguish credible sources from unreliable ones, making human verification essential to ensure accuracy and reliability.

Deep Research is expected to find applications in professional fields such as finance, science, and engineering, as well as assist consumers in making informed decisions about purchases like clothing, electronics, and cars.

Currently, it is available exclusively to ChatGPT Pro users in the United States, with a limit of 100 queries per month due to high processing costs. OpenAI plans to extend access to Plus, Team, and Enterprise users in the future. However, the service is not yet available in the UK or Europe.