9 Uses of Deep Research: Unlocking Hidden Insights Across Domains

Deep Research tools are all the rage right now, but what do we do with them? How are they actually useful? I lay out nine real-world use-cases spanning engineering, PM, marketing, and more...

I am losing count of the number of things named Deep in AI. It is a trend, and everyone is now launching something named Deep that searches. Perplexity has Deep Research as of the last week. Grok 3 has Deep Search as of yesterday. Both of them are copying OpenAI’s Deep Research, which is the only available way to use the o3 model unless you work at AI or are friends with Sam Altman.

I find I prefer OpenAI’s version because of the quality and range of available use-cases, but I admit it is pricy and you can probably get a lot of value for these same use-cases from other models. For a sense of performance, OpenAI’s Deep Research scores 28% on Humanity’s Last Exam currently, while Perplexity’s Deep Research scores 21%. Both are very good, if you value full and complete work you may prefer OpenAI. This article is written specifically with OpenAI Deep Research in mind, but works (less well) for other research models as well.

I’m writing this because I hope it expands your imagination of what is possible with an AI tool. Don’t just look at what it says on the tin! Get creative and think of new possible use-cases that you can use the same tool for to unlock more value. For example: you can prompt Deep Research using prompts built with o1 Pro. A page and a half prompt with o1 Pro is going to be much more detailed and useful to the model than most human-based prompts. You’re using a model to infer your intent and refine your own token output so it is more readable to a model, and the end result is an easier and quicker path to the value you’re looking for. Using AI to prompt AI may sound like sci fi, but so does most of the news these days. Enjoy!

What is Deep Research?

In an era of information overload, professionals are turning to AI to dig through data and surface the insights that matter. OpenAI’s new Deep Research tool for ChatGPT promises to accomplish in minutes what might take humans hours, acting as an autonomous research assistant on demand . This agentic capability can plan and execute multi-step web searches, adapt on the fly, and produce fully cited reports with a summary of its “thinking” . In other words, Deep Research functions like a tireless analyst that finds, analyzes, and synthesizes hundreds of online sources into a comprehensive output .

Initially available to ChatGPT Pro users, Deep Research is aimed at professionals in finance, science, policy, and engineering – but its potential spans far beyond. From writing better code to scouting sales leads, this AI-powered research agent is unlocking hidden insights across industries. Below, I explore 9 core use cases where Deep Research is making a practical impact, explaining how it’s used and the business value it brings in each scenario.