In February 2025, OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT Deep Research, a powerful feature integrated into the ChatGPT platform that redefines how users tackle complex, information-intensive tasks.
Often referred to as “ChatGPT DeepSearch” in casual discourse, this tool—officially named Deep Research—harnesses advanced AI to autonomously scour the web, analyze diverse sources, and deliver comprehensive, cited reports in a fraction of the time it would take a human researcher.
As of March 2025, this capability is transforming workflows for professionals, academics, and curious minds alike.
What is DeepSearch?
ChatGPT Deep Research is an advanced AI feature developed by OpenAI, designed to perform in-depth, multi-step research tasks on the internet.
This tool autonomously browses the web, interprets and analyzes text, images, and PDFs, and generates comprehensive reports on user-specified topics, complete with citations to external sources.
Powering Research
ChatGPT Deep Research emerged as a response to the growing demand for tools that go beyond quick answers to provide in-depth, reliable insights.
Launched initially for ChatGPT Pro subscribers on February 2, 2025, it has since expanded to all paying users—Plus, Team, Edu, and Enterprise—by late February.
Unlike the standard ChatGPT Search feature, which offers rapid responses with real-time web data, Deep Research is engineered for multi-step investigations, producing detailed reports that rival the work of a human research analyst.
Powered by a specialized version of OpenAI’s o3 model (Upcoming), optimized for reasoning and data analysis, DeepSearch autonomously navigates the internet, interprets text, images, and PDFs, and synthesizes findings into structured outputs.
This capability positions it as a game-changer for fields requiring precision and depth, such as finance, science, policy, and engineering, as well as everyday tasks like informed purchasing decisions.
How It Operates
The process behind ChatGPT Deep Research is both sophisticated and user-friendly.
Here’s how it works:
- Initiate the Query: Users select the “DeepSearch” option within the ChatGPT Prompt box, available across web, desktop, and mobile apps.
They input a detailed prompt—e.g., “Analyze recent trends in renewable energy investments”—and can attach files like spreadsheets or PDFs for added context. - Task Clarification: The AI may pose follow-up questions to refine the scope, ensuring the research aligns with the user’s intent.
- Autonomous Exploration: Using a “query fan-out” approach, the system conducts multiple concurrent searches across hundreds of online sources, adapting its strategy in real time as it encounters new information.
- Synthesis and Delivery: After 5 to 30 minutes, depending on complexity, it delivers a pages-long report with a sidebar summary of its process, complete with citations for verification.
This methodical approach allows DeepSearch to handle tasks like compiling a competitive analysis, drafting a literature review, or evaluating product options — tasks that might otherwise take hours or days.
Accessibility and Subscription Details
ChatGPT Deep Research is a premium feature, reflecting its compute-intensive nature.
As of February 25, 2025, OpenAI expanded access beyond the initial $200/month Pro tie.
Other paying tiers — ChatGPT Plus ($20/month), Team, Edu, and Enterprise also have access to the tool.
Free users currently lack access, underscoring its positioning as a high-value tool for subscribers.
To begin, users log into chatgpt.com, select “Deep Research” from the model picker, and submit their query. The feature is web-only for now, but its rollout to apps will broaden its reach.
DeepSearch Quota Limits
This feature does come with very limiting quotas:
- Chatgpt Plus users: 10 queries per month
- Chatgpt Pro users: 120 queries per month ( up from 100)
Core Capabilities
- Autonomous web research: Independently browses and analyzes extensive online data.
- Data synthesis: Integrates findings from texts, images, and PDFs into coherent reports.
- Credible citations: Provides comprehensive references to original information sources.
- Clarification interactions: Engages users to refine research topics and enhance output precision.
Real world applications
Deep Research shines in its ability to tackle diverse, complex challenges. It can:
- Analyze Markets: Produce a report on translation app trends, as shown in OpenAI’s demo, saving hours of manual research.
- Support Academia: Generate cited literature reviews, aiding scientists and students, as noted by Nature.
- Inform Decisions: Compare appliance features for consumers or dissect financial filings for strategists, per Every.to’s testing.
- Financial industry:
- Facilitates market research and trend analysis for investment decisions.
- Streamlines analysis of financial reports and economic indicators.
- Academic and educational settings:
- Supports comprehensive literature reviews and knowledge synthesis.
- Enhances research productivity by rapidly summarizing extensive sources.
- Legal profession:
- Assists in legal research by quickly analyzing relevant cases, laws, and precedents.
- Reduces time spent on preliminary information gathering and document preparation.
- Healthcare sector:
- Provides timely access to latest medical research, guidelines, and treatment updates.
- Enables healthcare professionals to make better-informed clinical decisions.
- Business intelligence:
- Offers actionable insights into competitor strategies, consumer behavior, and market dynamics.
- Enhances strategic planning and informed decision-making processes.
- Content development:
- Helps creators rapidly compile accurate, in-depth information on diverse topics.
- Improves content quality by providing detailed and verifiable insights.
- Public policy and governance:
- Supports evidence-based policymaking through detailed analysis of data and reports.
- Aids policymakers in developing comprehensive and informed policy documents.
- Personal and individual use:
- Provides detailed insights for critical personal decisions, such as health management or financial planning.
- Enhances user knowledge and confidence in making informed choices.
Considerations for effective use
- Accuracy and reliability: Always verify critical findings due to potential inaccuracies in AI-generated reports.
- Source evaluation: Critically assess the credibility of sources cited by Deep Research.
- Integration: Effectively integrate findings into decision-making workflows for optimal utility.
Its performance on Humanity’s Last Exam—a benchmark of 3,000 expert-level questions — yielded a 26.6% accuracy score, outpacing rivals like DeepSeek R1 (9.4%) and GPT-4o (3.3%), highlighting its analytical prowess.
Strengths and Limitations
The feature’s strengths lie in its autonomy and depth.
It saves significant time—up to five hours in healthcare research examples — and provides structured, verifiable outputs.
Plans to add embedded images and data visualizations will further enhance its utility.
However, it’s not flawless.
Like everything they release, OpenAI acknowledges that DeepSearch can hallucinate facts or misinterpret data, though less frequently than other ChatGPT models.
It may struggle to distinguish authoritative sources from rumors or convey uncertainty, necessitating human oversight for critical applications.
Formatting errors in reports also persist, though updates are addressing these issues.
Everybody is Releasing Deep Research
ChatGPT Deep Research enters a crowded field.
Google’s Deep Research, rolled out to Gemini Advanced users in February 2025, leverages Google Search for faster (5–10 minute) reports with real-time accuracy, while OpenAI’s tool excels in deeper analysis.
Perplexity AI’s offering, launched February 14, 2025, targets similar thoroughness.
Grok AI also offers a powerful deep research tool that is available for free. It’s worth noting that this capability was first introduced by DeepSeek.
Each tool balances speed, depth, and cost differently, but ChatGPT’s integration into a conversational platform sets it apart.
Future Directions
OpenAI envisions Deep Research evolving significantly. Upcoming enhancements include:
- Broader Data Integration: Connecting subscription-based and internal sources.
- Visual Enhancements: Adding charts and embedded images.
- Synergy with Operator: Combining with OpenAI’s task-executing agent for end-to-end solutions, like researching and booking travel.
As compute efficiency improves, query limits will rise, and access may extend further, though no timeline exists for free-tier inclusion.
