Perplexity Joins the Ranks of AI Companies to Offer In-Depth Research Tool
Perplexity’s Deep Research: A New Feature for Expert-Level Tasks
Perplexity has become the latest AI company to release an in-depth research tool, with a new feature announced on Friday. This development follows Google’s introduction of a similar feature for its Gemini AI platform in December and OpenAI’s launch of its own research agent earlier this month. Interestingly, all three companies have given their feature the same name: Deep Research.
The Goal: Providing In-Depth Answers for Professional Use Cases
The goal of Deep Research is to provide more in-depth answers with real citations for more professional use cases, unlike what you’d get from a consumer chatbot. In a blog post announcing Deep Research, Perplexity wrote that the feature "excels at a range of expert-level tasks—from finance and marketing to product research."
How Does Perplexity’s Deep Research Work?
Perplexity’s Deep Research is currently available on the web and will soon be added to its Mac, iOS, and Android apps. To use it, you simply select "Deep Research" from a drop-down menu when you submit your query in Perplexity, which will then create a detailed report that can be exported as a PDF or shared as a Perplexity Page. The company claims that its Deep Research tool "iteratively searches, reads documents, and reasons about what to do next, refining its research plan as it learns more about the subject areas," similar to how a human might research a new topic.
Performance on Humanity’s Last Exam
Perplexity highlighted its performance on Humanity’s Last Exam, an AI benchmarking test with expert-level questions in various academic fields. Perplexity’s Deep Research scored 21.1% on the test, outperforming most other models, including Gemini Thinking (6.2%), Grok-2 (3.8%), and OpenAI’s GPT-4o (3.3%). However, it did not quite match OpenAI’s Deep Research (26.6%).
Pricing and Availability
While OpenAI’s Deep Research requires a $200-per-month Pro subscription, Perplexity’s Deep Research is available for free, with non-subscribers getting an unspecified but limited number of queries per day, and paying subscribers getting unlimited queries.
Comparison with Other Deep Research Products
Perplexity compared the different technologies, pricing models, and performance in various use cases and subject matters, summarizing the differences as follows:
- Perplexity AI excels in speed and accessibility for casual researchers
- OpenAI dominates in analytical depth for enterprise applications
- Google integrates most seamlessly with existing productivity ecosystems
Conclusion
While it’s too early to know how these tools will affect everyday and professional research as they become more popular, The Economist recently highlighted shortcomings to OpenAI’s Deep Research that likely apply here too: limitations to its "creativity" in interpreting data and a tendency to rely on sources that are "easily available," as well as a larger risk that "outsourcing all your research to a supergenius assistant" could "reduce the number of opportunities to have your best ideas."
FAQs
Q: What is Perplexity’s Deep Research?
A: Perplexity’s Deep Research is an in-depth research tool that provides more detailed answers with real citations for professional use cases.
Q: How does Perplexity’s Deep Research work?
A: Perplexity’s Deep Research iteratively searches, reads documents, and reasons about what to do next, refining its research plan as it learns more about the subject areas.
Q: Is Perplexity’s Deep Research available for non-subscribers?
A: Yes, non-subscribers can use Perplexity’s Deep Research, but with an unspecified but limited number of queries per day. Paying subscribers get unlimited queries.
Q: How does Perplexity’s Deep Research compare to OpenAI’s Deep Research?
A: Perplexity’s Deep Research excels in speed and accessibility for casual researchers, while OpenAI dominates in analytical depth for enterprise applications.
