Recently, the AI company Perplexity announced the launch of a brand new "Deep Research" tool, becoming another competitor in the industry. The release of this tool follows closely behind Google and OpenAI, which have also introduced similar features on their respective AI platforms. All three platforms share the name "Deep Research," aimed at providing professional users with more detailed and reliable research answers.
Perplexity's "Deep Research" feature can be used on the web and will be integrated into Mac, iOS, and Android applications in the future. Users simply need to select "Deep Research" from a dropdown menu when submitting a query, and the system will generate a detailed report that users can export as a PDF or share as a Perplexity page.
The core of this new feature lies in its research capabilities. Perplexity states that "Deep Research" will "iteratively search, read documents, and think about the next steps," much like a human researcher delving into a new topic. According to test results, Perplexity's "Deep Research" performed excellently on the "Human Last Exam," an AI benchmark test, scoring 21.1%, far surpassing other models such as Gemini Thinking (6.2%), Grok-2 (3.8%), and OpenAI's GPT-4o (3.3%), though it still falls short of OpenAI's "Deep Research" score of 26.6%.
Unlike OpenAI's "Deep Research," which requires a $200 monthly Pro subscription, Perplexity's "Deep Research" is currently available for free. While non-subscribers have a limited number of daily queries, paying users can enjoy unlimited query convenience. Additionally, Perplexity's tool also has an advantage in task completion speed, with most tasks completed within three minutes, compared to OpenAI's tasks, which can take anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes.
When comparing various deep research products, Perplexity pointed out differences in technology, pricing models, and performance across different use cases: Perplexity excels in speed and convenience, making it suitable for casual researchers, while OpenAI holds an advantage in analytical depth for enterprise applications; Google integrates best within the existing productivity ecosystem.
Although it is still uncertain how these tools will affect everyday and professional research, The Economist recently highlighted some shortcomings of OpenAI's "Deep Research," which may also apply to Perplexity's tool. Relying on a super-intelligent assistant for research may reduce our chances of generating the best ideas.
