ChatGPT Deep Research

ChatGPT Deep Research is OpenAI's autonomous research agent, built into ChatGPT, that browses the web for 5 to 30 minutes to produce cited, comprehensive reports on complex topics. Rather than answering immediately, it plans a research strategy, browses dozens of sources autonomously, and synthesizes the findings into a structured report with citations. It runs on the GPT-5.6 model family (Sol, Sol Pro, Terra, and Luna), with GPT-5.5 Instant retained as the fast default, upgraded from the original GPT-5.2 launch. It scored 26.6% on Humanity's Last Exam and is state of the art on the GAIA benchmark for autonomous web research. Integration depth: MCP client connectivity, added February 2026, lets users connect Deep Research to external data sources and restrict searches to trusted sites, closing the public-web-only limitation of the original launch. By default it can use the public web, uploaded files, and connected apps with read-only access. Named connectors include document stores like Google Drive and SharePoint and authenticated industry data sources such as FactSet, PitchBook, and Scholar Gateway. Visual browser integration through agent mode, added July 2025, extends research to pages that need visual understanding. Users track progress in real time and can interrupt to refine the plan or adjust which sources it can access. Pricing follows ChatGPT plan tiers. Free includes a limited number of deep research queries. Go at $8 per month adds more messages and uploads but no expanded deep research. Plus at $20 per month includes expanded deep research with GPT-5.6 Sol, projects, tasks, and Custom GPTs. Pro from $100 per month provides the highest deep research limits with GPT-5.6 Sol Pro and priority access. Business at $20 per user per month billed annually ($25 monthly) adds admin controls, SAML SSO, and no training on business data. Enterprise is custom priced. Who it is not for: Deep Research is web-first, so it is not the best fit for structured literature review of indexed academic databases. Elicit ($49/mo billed annually), Consensus ($12/mo), and ResearchRabbit ($10/mo) handle systematic reviews of PubMed, arXiv, and Semantic Scholar better. Teams running high-volume research daily can also hit Plus query caps, which pushes them to Pro from $100 per month. Current state Q3 2026: the GPT-5.6 model family (Sol, Sol Pro, Terra, Luna) now powers Deep Research, with GPT-5.5 Instant as the fast default, upgraded from the original GPT-5.2 launch. MCP client connectivity is confirmed for connecting to external sources and restricting searches to trusted sites. Reports can be downloaded as Markdown, Word, or PDF. G2 shows 2,703 reviews at 4.6 for ChatGPT as of July 2026. SOC 2 Type 2, ISO/IEC 27001:2022, and ISO/IEC 42001:2023 are confirmed on OpenAI's security page, and OpenAI supports GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA compliance through a Data Processing Addendum and Business Associate Agreement. Business and Enterprise tiers do not train on customer data.