ChatGPT deep research review
8.0/10★★★★★ChatGPT's research agent that browses for minutes and writes long cited reports
- Best for
- Professionals who want a thorough written briefing on a complex topic
- Price
- Paid · from $20/month
Free: ChatGPT is free, but deep research is not included on the free plan - Platforms
- Web, iOS, Android
- Made by
- OpenAI, San Francisco, USA · since 2015
- App store ratings
- iOS 4.8★ (11M) · Android 4.8★ (63.6M)
What it is
Deep research in ChatGPT is an agent that spends 5 to 30 minutes searching and cross-referencing sources, then writes a detailed report with citations. It's aimed at intensive knowledge work in fields such as science, finance and policy, and can also use files you upload.
What the AI does
- Multi-step web research agent
- Long reports with inline citations
- Analysis of uploaded files
- Images and charts embedded in reports
Pros and cons
- Very thorough, long-form reports
- Included in the ChatGPT Plus subscription many people already have
- Excellent apps on every platform
- Not citation-verified by default; treat reports as drafts
- Only about 10 reports a month on Plus
- Not available on the free plan
How it scores
Among the most thorough research reports available, but monthly caps and unverified citations limit it.
Feature checklist · 3 of 9
- Searches a large database of academic papers (no)
- Answers from your own uploaded PDFs and documents (yes)
- Inline citations linked to the exact source (yes)
- Multi-step deep research reports (yes)
- Extracts details from papers into tables (no)
- Shows whether studies support or contradict a claim (no)
- Discovers related papers through citations or recommendations (no)
- Exports citations or connects to Zotero (no)
- Useful free plan (no)
Alternatives
See all ChatGPT deep research alternatives, ranked →
- Gemini Notebook 8.8/10Students and researchers who already have their sources and want to understand, question and summarise them
- Perplexity 8.4/10Fast cited overviews of a topic across the web and academic sources
- Consensus 8.3/10Students, clinicians and anyone checking what the research says about a specific question
- Elicit 7.8/10Researchers running systematic reviews or extracting data across many studies
Gemini Notebook vs ChatGPT deep researchPerplexity vs ChatGPT deep researchConsensus vs ChatGPT deep research