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Earlier this month, OpenAI debuted a new AI agent powered by its upcoming full o3 reasoning AI model called “Deep Research.”
As with Google’s Gemini-powered Deep Research agent released late last year, the idea behind OpenAI’s Deep Research is to provide a largely autonomous assistant that can scour the web and other digital scholarly sources for information about a topic or problem provided by the user, then compile it all into a neat report while the user goes about their other business in other tabs or leaving their computer behind entirely to live their life, providing the final report several minutes or even hours later with a notification.
Yet unlike Google’s Deep Research, the value of the OpenAi o3 Deep Research was immediately apparent to many outside the AI community, with some such as economist Tyler Cowen, who called it “amazing.”
While initially unveiled as a product limited to ChatGPT Pro subscribers ($200 per month), OpenAI said at the time it would move down its subscription tiers to the lower-priced ChatGPT Plus ($20 per month) and Team ($30 per month) as well as Edu and Enterprise (variable pricing) plans.
Today OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman clarified more of the company’s current thinking around making o3 Deep Research more widely available, quote-posting another user on X, @seconds_0, who wrote: “ok, OAI Deep Research is worth probably $1000 a month to me. This is utterly transformative to how my brain engages with the world. Im beyond in love and a little in awe.”
Altman responded: “i think we are going to initially offer 10 uses per month for chatgpt plus and 2 per month in the free tier, with the intent to scale these up over time.
it probably is worth $1000 a month to some users but i’m excited to see what everyone does with it!”
While 10 users per month for the ChatGPT Plus tier seems workable, to me 2 uses per month seems almost trivial. I guess if you’re a free user, the hope is to hook you with how well it works and encourage you to upgrade to a higher cost plan, pulling you up the funnel — or whatever salespeople like to say.
Still, it is helpful to learn what OpenAI is thinking about when it comes to the availability of its powerful new products and agents. If you’re a free ChatGPT user, you best make sure your 2 uses per month of Deep Research are for queries your really want or need answered.
And compared to Deep Research, which is free (though powered by last generation’s Gemini 1.5 Pro model), OpenAI better hope that its o3 Deep Research is worth the price.
