By Lance Whitney
Publication Date: 2026-06-05 17:09:00
Whenever I have to research a specific topic, I naturally turn to the web. However, I don’t always have the time to spend hours reading every article out there. Instead, I can ask an AI chatbot to tackle much of the initial work for me. A variety of popular AIs offer a Deep Research mode, which performs online research on your behalf. Just submit a request, and the AI searches the web for any relevant information. It then generates a detailed report, complete with sources.
You can try Deep Research with ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity AI, and Grok. To put them to the test, I asked each one to research how GPS developed from its military origins to the commercial system we all rely on today. Here’s how each AI fared and which one was my favorite.
ChatGPT
OpenAI’s ChatGPT provides two different versions of Deep Research. One is a full version, which offers an in-depth report that can take as long as 30 minutes to complete. The other is a lightweight option that creates a shorter and less in-depth report in only a few minutes. The version the AI uses will depend on your plan.
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Free: No access to the full version of Deep Research and 15 uses of the lightweight version per month.
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Plus, Team, Edu: Users get 10 full and 15 lightweight queries per month.
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Pro: users get 125 full and 125 lightweight requests per month.
After you hit the limit for the full version, submissions automatically switch to the lightweight one.
(Credit: PCMag / OpenAI)
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