Once upon a time there was a researcher who spent hours digging through documents in search of information. Today OpenAI is changing the rules of the game with Deep Research, an AI agent that promises to condense hours of research into minutes, analyzing text, images and documents with astonishing precision.
The Researcher Who Never Sleeps
Remember the scene in The Matrix when Neo learns kung fu in a few seconds? Well, Deep Research does something similar with online searches. Only instead of martial arts, it downloads and analyzes documents, images and PDFs at the speed of light. It is not the first “agent” launched by OpenAI this year. Last month it arrived Operator, a kind of digital butler that books flights and does the shopping. Now with Deep Research, the family is growing.
It’s like having a team of tireless researchers available 24/7. As long as you have that little bit of money to invest in your ChatGPT Pro subscription: it costs $200 a month, but hey, how much is your time worth? OpenAI promises to expand the service to other subscribers in the future, but there are no specific dates for now. It’s a bit like when they told you “soon” when you were a kid: it could mean five minutes or five hours.
What exactly does Deep Research do?
The AI agent can analyze and synthesize information from hundreds of online sources, producing detailed reports in significantly less time than a human would. Deep Research is aimed at professionals who need accurate and reliable data, such as financial or scientific reports, and can also be used to compare products such as appliances or cars. Currently available to ChatGPT Pro users, the service includes the ability to attach files and spreadsheets to improve the accuracy of searches. OpenAI has promised that the results will be well-documented and cited, ensuring transparency and verifiability of the information provided. We will see.
The limits of perfection
Be careful, of course, even superheroes have their weaknesses. Deep Research can still blur reality and fiction, like your uncle when he shares weird news on Facebook. And then there's the limit of 100 searches per month. Why? Well, apparently even AI needs a break every now and then: and then, it consumes so much energy, you know it well.
OpenAI CEO Sam altman claims that AI agents will be “the next big thing.” Meanwhile, Chinese companies like DeepSeek are catching up fast. It's like a new space race, only instead of going to the moon, we're trying to create the perfect digital assistant.
Deep Research, perspectives and reflections
AI Agents Will Be the Next Big Revolution
- Sam altman, CEO of OpenAI
Think about it: we're creating virtual assistants that can do in minutes what would take us hours. That's great, sure, but it also raises interesting questions. What will happen to human searchers? And most importantly, who will monitor the accuracy of these super-fast searches?
Deep Research is a “classmate” that always does homework in record time: impressive, but sometimes you have to double check its work. It is a powerful tool that could change the way we do research, but the real question is: are we ready for a world where deep research becomes a matter of minutes? Maybe yes, maybe no. In the meantime, Deep Research is here, ready to do the dirty work for us. All you need is $200 a month and the willingness to trust a very, very “smart” algorithm: with many, many quotes.