Sunday evening, OpenAI launched ‘deep research’ in ChatGPT, that conducts multi-step research on the internet for complex tasks. It accomplishes in minutes what would take a human many hours.
From OpenAI,
…[Yo]u give it a prompt, and ChatGPT will find, analyze, and synthesize hundreds of online sources to create a comprehensive report at the level of a research analyst. Powered by a version of the upcoming OpenAI o3 model that’s optimized for web browsing and data analysis, it leverages reasoning to search, interpret, and analyze massive amounts of text, images, and PDFs on the internet, pivoting as needed in reaction to information it encounters.
The ability to synthesize knowledge is a prerequisite for creating new knowledge. For this reason, deep research marks a significant step toward our broader goal of developing AGI, which we have long envisioned as capable of producing novel scientific research.
More simply put, from Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO,
today we launch deep research, our next agent.
this is like a superpower; experts on demand!
it can go use the internet, do complex research and reasoning, and give you back a report.
it is really good, and can do tasks that would take hours/days and cost hundreds of dollars.— Sam Altman (@sama) February 3, 2025
Obviously, I’m thinking lawyers and legal blogs. Both the ability to find, analyze and synthesize information for writing a blog post, but also doing the same for finding and analyzing libraries of blog posts.
Immediately puts legal blog posts in the midst of deep research’s research, interpretation, and analysis of legal data for all sorts of legal search.
Deep research, reports OpenAI, is “built for people who do intensive knowledge work in areas like finance, science, policy, and engineering and need thorough, precise, and reliable research.”
Doesn’t take much of leap from that group to reach lawyers. A lawyer’s stock in trade includes thorough, precise and reliable research.
Wharton Professor Ethan Mollick, a leading analyst on AI and its capabilities, makes an early strong statement.
OpenAI’s deep research is very good. Unlike Google’s version, which is a summarizer of many sources, OpenAI is more like engaging an opinionated (often almost PhD-level!) researcher who follows lead.
Look at how it hunts down a concept in the literature (& works around problems) pic.twitter.com/zAQSBrP2i7— Ethan Mollick (@emollick) February 3, 2025
Seems we’re moving by the month or week when it comes to AI developments.
For knowledge centric companies such as LexBlog with a legal blog network closing in on one million blog posts, and with the continuing demand for blogging on our platform, it’s hard keeping up with the way AI influences publishing and research.
Source: Kevin O’Keefe
