Amid DeepSeek buzz, OpenAI introduces new ‘deep research’ tool for ChatGPT

Days after China's DeepSeek disrupted the AI chatbot market, OpenAI has now added a new 'deep research' mode to its ChatGPT. It allows ChatGPT to carry out more complicated tasks, including preparing reports by browsing the web and finding thousands of sources far more quickly than a human worker. Deep Research is OpenAI's second AI agent, after the launch of Operator AI for browser-related tasks last month.

Deep research currently only supports text output. However, OpenAI says it plans to add embedded images, data visualisations and other analytical output in the coming weeks. Reports suggest that deep research queries will take between 5 and 30 minutes to return a result, and the chatbot will send users a notification when their research is complete.

Powered by a version of OpenAI o3 optimized for web browsing and python analysis, deep research uses reasoning to intelligently and extensively browse text, images, and PDFs across the internet.