Transcription
Have you tried out any of the new AI deep research tools? Well, if you haven't, this video is exactly for you. And if you have, I'd like your feedback.
You see, just a couple of months ago, in the end of 2024, we just had basic old AI. When we wanted to do research, yeah, we could use Google; we could even use Perplexity. Uh, we'd get some search results back. GPT search existed, but at the end of the day, it really wasn't research; it was just kind of glorified search.
Well, fast forward a couple of months, and today, as I record this (the end of February), we have a plethora of options, and I wanted to take just a couple of minutes and share my thoughts on those with you.
So today, who are the options? Where do they come from? Well, let's start with the big one: it's ChatGPT. They have their deep research option; it costs $200 a month to get access to it, and it's really incredible. But does that mean that's the one that you should be using? Well, not necessarily. In fact, it's not even my favorite one. Let's talk about the others a moment.
So, in addition to ChatGPT, uh, recently Perplexity has released their deep research model, and it's really impressive. Now, it's only available for paid users, so it's $20 a month, but boy, that's a whole lot less than 200. Wow. So if you're looking for deep research, that's definitely one to consider. And Perplexity has also integrated DeepSeek's new R3 model, which is also a deep research model. So you've got multiple ways you can take a look at that and multiple ways to do deep research. Great tool; not my absolute favorite, but almost.
What is my absolute favorite? Well, this one just literally came out the other day, and it's Grok. You may be going, "Grok? What is that?" That's the AI from Twitter, or X, Elon Musk—you may be familiar with him—and it is mind-blowing. It's amazing what it does. They have a deep research mode; they have a thinking mode. You do need to be a paid subscriber, which I believe is $15 to $20 a month, but the results, without a doubt, right now, as I record this, it's my favorite deep research tool. It's incredible.
Then there are some other options beyond that that are really good and definitely should not be overlooked. One of those is just Google. You may be surprised. You go, "Jonathan, you're actually recommending a Google AI tool?" Yeah, I am. As I sit here at a conference and record this, uh, Google's Gemini 1.5 deep research is a really solid choice if you've got access to Gemini. I highly recommend that you use it. It's very slow, but very good overall, and highly recommended.
After those three—when we talk ChatGPT, we talk Grok, and we talk Perplexity and Gemini—those four, I guess—then where do we go from there? Well, we've got a couple of other options that are worth considering. One of my favorite options, and this one is absolutely free, is called Storm from Stanford University. It's really incredible. It's amazing. And, by the way, did I mention it's free?
So if you're looking for a way to do some deep research and have AI dig in and give you those citations and find all that, and you don't want to spend $200 a month for the OpenAI solution, don't even want to spend $20 a month for Perplexity or Grok, then, or Google Gemini for that matter, my next recommendation is Storm from Stanford. It's very good, and as I mentioned, it's 100% free.
And then, rounding out the back is DeepSeek. This is the Chinese AI that set the world all a-cruffle a few weeks ago as they became super popular, and their new R3 model, DeepSeek's R3 model, is impressive. It's really good, and it's free, but I don't like it as well as I like the others that I've mentioned.
So there are a lot of options for you. If you're not opposed to paying, or if you're already a premium member on Twitter or X, then I highly recommend you take a look at Grok. It's really impressive. I love both their thinking model and their deep research model and have truly been impressed with both. Very close behind that—in fact, possibly even tied—is Perplexity. Perplexity deep research is really amazing, as is their integration of R3 from DeepSeek. By the way, Perplexity's R3 integration is hosted here in the United States, so it gets past a lot of the security concerns that people have over a Chinese AI.
Next is Google's Gemini 1.5 deep research—again, an excellent tool, does a great job, and one I can highly recommend—but again, is about $20 a month. If you're looking to save a few dollars, then I recommend you take a look at Storm by Stanford University. It's really impressive, and certainly, I think DeepSeek, which is also free, uh, is an excellent opportunity for you to consider getting some free deep research done.
That's the way I break them down. I'd love to hear your thoughts. What do you think about the new deep research? Do you like it? Do you find it relevant, and do you think it's helpful? What are your favorite tools?
Oh, by the way, before I go, let me remind you of one thing: deep research is amazing, but it doesn't mean that we still don't need to research, and we need to fact-check. You still need to go through; you need to proofread it; you need to make sure everything's accurate. As again, keep in mind, AI has been trained on data from all kinds of disparate sources, and some of those sources disagree. Sometimes it even makes up things. So make sure you proofread all of that content before you publish it. But I think you'll find that the new deep research tools are incredible, and I'd love to hear your feedback. Let me know in the comments.