Perplexity AI Launches Deep Research Tool, Challenging OpenAI and Google

Perplexity AI has unveiled its new Deep Research tool, which has been designed to conduct comprehensive research and analysis in just under three minutes. It is positioning itself as a direct competitor to industry leaders OpenAI and Google. The tool, developed under CEO Aravind Srinivas's leadership, promises to significantly reduce user research time.

The new feature complements Perplexity's existing DeepSeek R1 offering and is now available on the company's website, with plans to expand to iOS, Android, and Mac applications. Pro subscribers will have access to 500 queries daily, while free users will receive limited responses.

According to Perplexity, the Deep Research tool employs a human-like approach to research, performing multiple searches across hundreds of sources before synthesizing the information into a comprehensive report. Users can export their results as either PDF documents or shareable Perplexity pages.

The company claims the tool can provide expert-level analysis across various domains, including finance, marketing, and technology, while also serving as a personal consultant for health, product research, and travel planning.

In terms of performance, Perplexity acknowledges that its Deep Research tool currently ranks below ChatGPT Deep Research in Humanity's Last Exam accuracy rankings. However, the company reports outperforming several other AI models on the same benchmark, including Gemini Thinking, o3-Mini, Grok 2, and Claude 3.5 Sonnet.

The tool's launch represents a significant step in the evolving AI research landscape as companies compete to provide users with more sophisticated and efficient research solutions.