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AI chatbots are often accused of a somewhat shallow approach to gathering and explaining information.
Coincidentally, that’s the same nameOpenAIuses for a very similarChatGPTPro feature also calledDeep Research.
The two tools both promise to do the heavy research work for you.
Supposedly, they can comb through the vast sprawl of the internet to deliver curated, well-reasoned answers.
Despite the name, it’s worth noting that the Deep Research fees are a little different.
OpenAIs Deep Research requires a $200-per-month subscription toChatGPTPro, which is still capped at 100 queries per month.
It can also take as much as 20 minutes to get a full report.
I chose three and tested them against Perplexity’s Deep Research to see how they did.
TV mysteries
I started with the ‘needle in a haystack’ query from ChatGPT’s Deep Research.
It was a long, rambling question about a specific TV show episode.
The prompt asked:
“There is a TV show that I watched a while ago.
I forgot the name but I do remember what happened in one of the episodes.
Can you help me find the name?
Here is what I remember in one of the episodes:
Two men play poker.
One folds after another tells him to bet.
The one who folded actually had a good hand and fell for the bluff.
On the second hand, the same man folds again, but this time with a bad hand.
A man gets locked in the room, and then his daughter knocks on the door.
Two men go to a butcher shop, and one man brings a gift of vodka.
yo browse the web deeply to find the TV show episode where this happened exactly.”
It cited the show’s own episode summary and wiki.
Perplexity Deep Research, meanwhile, seemed to be trying to gaslight me with its answer.
Score one for ChatGPT’s slow and expensive option.
I ride mainly in Hokkaido twice a month in the winter.
I like groomed runs but also want something that can handle fresh powder.
I prefer all-mountain or freestyle boards with medium flex, stable for carving yet maneuverable.
Also, I want it in a citrus color palette.
Oh, and I want availability in Japan.
Format the response in an easy-to-read table.
ChatGPTs Deep Research had a highly structured response that laid out two tables.
It even included detailed recommendations on how best to snowboard in Hokkaidos unique powder conditions.
It all made sense as far as I could tell, but there was zero overlap in the recommendations.
The query is simply: “Whats the average retirement age for NFL kickers?
It did stake a claim that 4.8 seasons is the average length of their careers.
The AI also cited statistics showing kickers with an average career of 4.4 seasons.
Those kinds of statistics likely vary based on the age of the sources.
Pay for depth
ChatGPTs Deep Research was undeniably better in its final form from this brief test.
The exhaustive, well-structured reports were quite well-written.
That being said, they were also very dry and dull.
It’s a bit like a good abstract for a scholarly dissertation.
And you don’t even have to pay for that if you rarely need any Deep Research done.
