Just a few hours ago, I was sitting in my barber's chair when Perplexity dropped their latest tool.
My first thought?
"Can I please get a break?"
The pace of AI releases is relentless – every minute brings something new to analyze.
But this one needed immediate attention. Perplexity just launched their "Deep Research" feature, joining the trend of AI companies all seemingly adopting the same naming convention. Whether it's Perplexity, OpenAI, or Google Gemini, apparently we're all calling it "deep research" now.
It’s starting to look like these companies are really rushing out unfinished products to compete. Perplexity has been disappointing me a bit. This new tool is not even on par with Google Gemini’s deep research. It has its place, but do not listen to the people saying it’s just as good as ChatGPT or even Gemini.
The full Perplexity-generated report is attached further down as a PDF. Take a look for yourself.
Let's cut through the noise and look at what Perplexity actually released.
According to their announcement, Deep Research promises to "save you hours of time by conducting in-depth research and analysis." The pitch is familiar: it performs dozens of searches, reads hundreds of sources, and reasons through material to deliver comprehensive reports.
The key differentiator? It's free.
Pro subscribers get unlimited queries, while everyone else gets a limited number of daily searches. That's genuinely interesting when most advanced features come with a premium price tag.
How deep research actually works
The process starts simply enough. You access it through Perplexity's regular search engine – whether on desktop, web, or mobile. Select "Deep Research" from the models dropdown, and you're ready to go.
When you submit a query, you get:
A real-time research plan
Visible search queries being used
Sources with hover-preview descriptions
Progress tracking with notification options
I watched it work through our test query about AI copyright rules. The system shows you exactly what it's searching for, letting you see how it modifies and refines queries based on initial results. You can enable desktop notifications to keep working while it processes – a nice touch for longer research sessions.
