How Perplexity AI's 'Deep Research' tool fares against ChatGPT, Gemini
What's the story
Led by Aravind Srinivas, Perplexity AI has launched a new tool called Deep Research. The new technology will conduct extensive research and analysis for you, completing most of the tasks in under three minutes. With Deep Research, Perplexity AI has become a direct competitor to tech giants like OpenAI and Google.
User accessibility
A step toward user-friendly AI
The Deep Research tool is currently available on Perplexity's website, with plans to make it available on iOS, Android, and Mac versions of its apps. The company provides Pro users with as many as 500 queries a day, while free users get a limited number of responses. To use Deep Research, users just have to select the new option in the model picker under the search box.
Information synthesis
Unique approach to information analysis
Perplexity's Deep Research tool emulates a human researcher by performing several searches, going through several sources, and deciding the next step. Once it has all the data, it generates a "clear and comprehensive report" that can be exported as a PDF or even shared as a Perplexity page. This capability enables the tool to deliver expert-level analysis on different complex topics like finance, marketing, and technology.
Versatility
Performance and potential applications
Deep Research can also act as a 'personal consultant' for health-related questions, product research, and even travel planning. Although Deep Research lags behind ChatGPT Deep Research in the Humanity's Last Exam accuracy rankings, Perplexity claims that its latest AI tool outperforms rivals like Gemini Thinking, o3-Mini, Grok 2 and Claude 3.5 Sonnet on the same benchmark.
Competitive edge
Deep Research tool's speed and cost-effectiveness
Srinivas has claimed Perplexity's Deep Research tool is "an order of magnitude faster and cheaper" than OpenAI's offering. This is a big deal as ChatGPT Deep Research only offers 100 queries to its Pro users, while Perplexity offers 500 queries/day for paid subscribers. The focus on finishing most tasks in under three minutes could be Perplexity's way of beating ChatGPT Deep Research, which can take anywhere between 30 minutes to several hours for a single query.