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A research tool, not a chat feature.

ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity all have deep research now. Here is what changes when research is the whole product, with each vendor's own documentation cited for the comparison.

Duration

Runs as long as the question needs.

Minutes for a focused brief, up to an hour for hundreds of documents. Runs survive a closed tab and retry their own failures.

ElsewhereChatGPT: 5 to 30 minutes1 · Gemini: about 5 to 10 minutes2 · Perplexity: most runs under 3 minutes3

Sources

Starts from the primary record.

Eighteen public-data feeds like SEC EDGAR, FRED, and the Federal Register, each with a specialist subagent, alongside 150+ connectors and multi-engine web search.

ElsewhereChatGPT: the web, your files, and connected apps4 · Gemini: Google Search, Gmail, and Drive2 · Perplexity: the web plus licensed sources like Statista5

Evidence

Every claim traces to a copy you keep.

Citations point to sources saved in the workspace, a second model checks the report against them, and the whole run exports as one .zip.

ElsewhereChatGPT exports the report as Markdown, Word, or PDF4 · Perplexity links to the original pages6 · None of the three documents saving copies of sources2,3,4

Models

Claude or GPT, your pick per run.

Choose the model for each run and each automation, including 1M-token models for long document sets.

Automations

Research that runs without you.

Put a brief on a schedule, start it from a webhook or an app event like a new email, or call the same engine from the REST API.

Where they're the better pick: they're included in plans you may already pay for2,7, and Perplexity is faster for quick questions3.

Details about other tools come from each vendor's own documentation, checked October 26, 2026.

  1. 1.OpenAI, Introducing deep research(Feb 2025, updated Feb 2026)
  2. 2.Google, Use Deep Research in Gemini Apps(undated)
  3. 3.Perplexity, What is Research mode?(undated)
  4. 4.OpenAI, Deep research in ChatGPT(Oct 2026)
  5. 5.Perplexity, Premium data sources(undated)
  6. 6.Perplexity, How does Perplexity work?(undated)
  7. 7.OpenAI, ChatGPT pricing(undated)

Try it on the question you'd give a chat assistant.

Start a free research run